Chương 1
"“Get out of my house.”
Mark let the tape measure retract with a metallic snap.
For the first time since he had walked through my front door, the smirk slipped off his face.
Dad pushed away from the wall.
“Jack.”
“No.”
Mom folded her arms across her chest.
“You don’t talk to your family like that.”
I pointed at Mark.
“He walked into my house after I told him he wasn’t moving in, and he started measuring my living room for his furniture.”
Mark rolled his eyes.
“Oh, come on.”
“That sentence is insane.”
He laughed once through his nose, but there was no humor in it.
Dad stepped closer.
“You’re turning a practical conversation into a personal attack.”
“It became personal when you decided my house belonged to somebody else.”
Nobody answered immediately.
From somewhere outside came the uneven whine of a lawn mower starting and stopping.
A dog barked twice.
My groceries were still sitting near the kitchen island, and a carton of milk had tipped sideways inside one of the bags.
I noticed all of that because looking at my family had suddenly become exhausting.
Mom lowered her voice.
“We’re trying to help everybody.”
“Who is everybody?”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Who are you helping right now?”
Her eyes moved toward Mark.
That was answer enough.
Mark shoved the tape measure into the pocket of his jacket.
“Fine.”
He walked toward me, close enough that I had to move or let him shoulder past.
I stayed where I was.
He stopped.
“You’re really going to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything weird over a house.”
I stared at him.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I stepped aside and opened the door wider.
Mark walked out first.
Mom stayed inside.
“Jack, please.”
I waited.
Her expression changed in small ways, irritation softening into disappointment, disappointment rearranging itself into concern.
She had been doing that my entire life.
When she wanted something from me, her face always found a way to make my refusal look cruel.
“Mark and Tessa are serious,” she said.
“I know.”
“They’ve been talking about children.”
“I know.”
“He’s worried about money.”
“So am I.”
“You’re doing well.”
“That doesn’t mean I have seven hundred fifty thousand dollars sitting in a drawer.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
She looked toward the stairs.
The house was quiet enough that I could hear Mark outside saying something under his breath to Dad.
Mom rubbed the side of her thumb against her wedding ring.
“You’ve always been better at handling things.”
There it was.
Not selfish this time.
Responsible.
The word they usually used before handing me something heavy.
When Mark wrecked Dad’s old truck at nineteen, I drove him to work for six weeks because I was responsible.
When he dropped out of community college halfway through a semester, I helped him move back home because I was responsible.
When my parents needed someone to sit with Grandma during her final months, I rearranged shifts because I was responsible.
Mark cried at her funeral and everyone held him.
I handled the paperwork.
Nobody had asked whether that hurt.
They had just thanked me for being dependable.
Mom mistook my silence for movement.
“You could work something out.”
“No.”
“Maybe not sell it outright.”
“No.”
“Rent it to him for a while.”
“No.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Could you stop saying that for one minute?”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I had never spoken to her that way.
It made my stomach twist even while a mean little part of me enjoyed it.
That part embarrassed me.
I didn’t like who my family turned me into.
Dad appeared in the doorway behind her.
“We’re leaving.”
Mom looked at him.
He had the rigid expression he wore whenever he believed the discussion had become beneath him.
Mark was already halfway to the car.
Dad looked directly at me.
“You need to think seriously about what you’re doing here.”
“I bought a house.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
He waited for me to say more.
I didn’t.
Mom picked up her purse from the entry table.
She had put it there as casually as if she had expected to spend the afternoon choosing curtains.
At the door, she turned back.
“Your brother loves you.”
I looked past her toward the driveway.
Mark had opened the passenger door of Dad’s SUV and was staring at his phone.
“I’m sure he does.”
She flinched like I had insulted her.
Then she left.
I locked the door after them.
Not ten seconds later, somebody tried the handle from outside.
The knob moved once.
Then again.
I stood perfectly still.
Dad’s voice came through the door.
“Why is this locked?”
I opened it two inches, keeping the chain attached.
He was holding up a small silver key.
My spare key.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I looked at the key and looked back at him.
“Where did you get that?”
Dad frowned as if the question itself irritated him.
“Your mother has had it.”
“I never gave Mom a key.”
“She made a copy.”
Something cold moved through me.
“Of what?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation mattered more than anything he said next.
“The one you gave us while you were moving.”
I had given Dad my key for exactly one afternoon three days before closing on my old apartment because the furniture delivery company had changed its time window while I was at work.
He was supposed to let them in.
He had returned the key that evening.
Apparently, not before copying it.
“Give it to me.”
Dad’s jaw hardened.
“We’re family.”
“Give me the key.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Then it should be easy.”
He stared at me through the narrow opening.
I could see Mom sitting in the SUV behind him.
Mark had finally looked up from his phone.
Dad placed the key in my palm.
May you like
I closed the door.
Then I stood with my back against it until I heard the SUV start.
