I was exhausted, angry, and nowhere near awake enough for the performance he expected from me.

“If she doesn’t want to sound like one,” I said, “she should stop asking for money she never plans to return.”

His face shifted.

I had seen him irritated before.

Defensive before.

Petty, passive-aggressive, stubborn.

But this was something colder.

He stepped close enough that I could smell coffee on his breath and the stale trace of whiskey from the night before.

“You do not speak to my family like that in my house.”

“Our house,” I said.

“And I pay half the mortgage.”

That was when he shoved me.