I had spent the last ten years pulling wire through freezing basements to pay off this one-bedroom place.

I had skipped meals.

I had worn the same pair of boots until the soles split in the snow.

“I gave you my savings,” I said to her.

“I gave you thirty thousand dollars for your surgeries.”

Megan looked up, her eyes flashing with a sudden, cold anger.

“Nobody forced you to do that,” she said.

My father let out a dry, choking sound.

It was the sound of a man losing his breath.

He looked back at the screen.

There were line items for flights to Cabo.

There were charges for high-end boutique stores in Miami.

All of it paid from the joint account my father had spent his entire life building.

“Forty-two thousand dollars,” he whispered, reading a line from two years ago.

“That was my retirement bonus from the plant.”

“We needed it,” my mother said.

She stepped between my father and Megan.

Her face was flushed, her chest rising and falling quickly.

“You don’t understand the pressure she was under,” my mother said.