Bianca opened the cover, and her satisfied smile lasted exactly one page. The first thing she saw was not a threat or a lecture. It was a spreadsheet, in my careful handwriting, of every dollar I had given the two of them over the past eleven years. The tuition. The rent I’d covered when Marcus was “between jobs.” The wedding I’d paid for outright. The loans I’d quietly absorbed. The emergencies. At the bottom, a total that made Marcus’s mouth fall open. It was more than four times my entire year’s pension.

“You want half of what I earn now,” I said quietly, sitting back down across from them. “So I thought we should first talk about what you already owe.” Bianca flipped faster, and her face changed with every page, because I hadn’t just kept a total. I’d kept the receipts, the bank transfer confirmations, the texts where each of them had promised to pay me back, promises that were always followed by silence. Marcus stopped leaning in. Bianca’s hands had gone still on the binder. “Mom,” she started, “this isn’t, we didn’t mean—” But I raised one finger, because there was one more section they hadn’t reached yet, and it was the reason I’d truly built the binder. “Turn to the last tab,” I said. “The one marked with the red divider. Then tell me again about making things official while I’m still clear-headed.”