“Well, Maddie,” my mother said. “We’re worried about you. Have you found something stable yet?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I found clarity.”
Brandon laughed.
“That doesn’t pay rent.”
“Funny, coming from you.”
I opened the folder and placed the first sheet on the table: every transfer I had made over ten years. 418,600 dollars. I did not include gifts, meals, or small emergencies. Only direct money. My father picked up the page and frowned.
“What is this?”
“A reminder. Brandon, 35,000 for a business that never existed. Natalie, 42,000 for your wedding. Mom, 28,000 for ‘medicine’ that lined up perfectly with your trip to Savannah. Dad, 22,000 for the roof, one month before your vacation in Miami.”
The room went still. Natalie crossed her arms.
“How tacky, bringing accounts into a family meeting.”
“What was tackier was asking me for money and then calling me a burden the moment you believed I needed help.”
My mother’s face turned red.
“I never said that.”
I projected the screenshot from the family group onto the TV. Her sentence appeared huge on the screen: “She does need to learn that we won’t always rescue her.”
Paul lowered his eyes. Beatrice pretended to adjust her necklace. Brandon stood up.
“You were spying on us?”
“No. You were talking in a group where my number was still there.”
My father tapped his fingers against the table.
“You invented a crisis to manipulate us.”
“I invented a small crisis. You revealed a very large truth.”
Then Ellen spoke for the first time.
