“What do you mean, already happening?” I asked, sitting straighter against the cold apartment floor. Dad’s breathing hitched on the other end. I could hear the old refrigerator humming behind him, the same one I’d bought two years ago when theirs died and nobody thought to thank me.

“There’s a letter,” he finally said. “From the bank. It came three weeks ago. Your mother hid it.” His voice cracked in a way I’d never heard from him. “The house was already behind before you left. Two payments behind. She kept telling me you were handling it.” I closed my eyes. The picture was assembling itself faster than I wanted. All those months Mom insisted everything was fine, all those late notices she waved away as “temporary.” She hadn’t been protecting the family. She’d been hiding how deep the hole already was, and she’d been letting me fill it without ever telling me it had no bottom.