“So you let me believe my daughter was dying?” he asked.

“You let me spend my pension on those clinics?”

“We needed the money to live,” my mother whispered.

“The bills were so high.”

“Because you made them high!” my father shouted.

The force of his voice made the dishes in my open cupboard rattle.

Lauren flinched on the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“You told me the state wouldn’t cover her physical therapy,” my father said, his breathing heavy and ragged.

“You told me we had to pay cash to that doctor in Toledo.”

“Who was that doctor, Clara?”

Megan let out a short, sharp laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping on pavement.

“There was no doctor in Toledo, Dad,” Megan said.

“That was just Aunt Sarah’s cabin.”

“We went there for three weeks every summer while you worked the overtime shifts.”

“Mom told you the treatment was intensive and we couldn’t have visitors.”

My father’s head dropped.

He looked at the floor between his boots, his chest heaving under his flannel shirt.