I did not even know where it had been kept.

And beside it on the table lay something else that made my stomach drop: a printed mortgage notice for our home, our house, stamped across the top in red with the words FINAL WARNING, and dated three months ago.

I looked from the notice, to the journal, to the scattered receipts, and then to my son, who stood in the middle of it all with his eyes wide and terrified and wet, tears cutting clean tracks through the gray smudges of kitchen grease on his cheeks, his chapped raw hands trembling at his sides.

“Caleb,” I said, and my voice cracked and nearly failed.