The phone screen lit up with Megan’s name.

Neither of them looked at it.

My father kept his eyes locked on my mother’s face.

“I asked you a question,” he said.

His voice was quieter now, which was worse than the shouting.

My mother crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her fingers digging into her cardigan.

“I did what I had to do to keep this family together,” she said.

“By lying?” my father asked.

“By protecting her,” she replied, her chin trembling.

“Protecting her from what?” he said, taking another step forward.

The floorboards groaned under his heavy work boots.

“She wasn’t sick, Martha,” he said.

“She was lazy.”

“Don’t you dare say that about your own daughter,” my mother snapped.

She looked at me, then back at him, her eyes wide and desperate.

“You don’t know what it’s like to watch your child struggle,” she said.

“I worked eighty hours a week so she could have medicine!” he yelled.

The veins on his neck stood out, thick and blue against his collar.

“I took every double shift at the plant,” he said.