“It’s her private property.”

“Whose phone is this?” my father asked.

He looked at the name on the account settings.

“It’s under your name, Helen,” he said to my mother.

“The bill is sent to our house.”

“But Megan has the phone.”

He scrolled through the messages.

His face went from gray to a deep, dark red.

The anger was finally rising, breaking through the shock.

“Who is ‘Captain Dave’?” he asked.

“Arthur, please,” my mother pleaded.

She reached for his arm, but he pushed her hand away.

“Who is he?” my father roared.

The sound shook the small apartment.

I had never heard my father yell like that in my entire life.

Even when the plant closed, he had remained quiet.

Even when Megan first “lost her mobility,” he had only wept silently.

“It’s for a trip,” Megan said, her voice rising to match his.

“A trip we were planning.”

“With my retirement money?” my father asked.

“With the money your brother earned in the dirt?”

Megan looked at me, then at our father, and finally at our mother.

She was backed against the kitchen counter now.