“You’re calling a normal family account a crime because you want to be vindictive in front of your parents.”

“You spent eighteen thousand seven hundred thirty-one dollars over eleven months while telling me we couldn’t buy peanut butter without coupons,” I said.

Mark rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand, his wrist twitching as he looked away toward the peak of the barn roof.

“That money was an administrative arrangement between me and my family,” he said, his words speeding up into a smooth, reasonable pitch.

“You don’t drag my mother into a private marital disagreement over budget line items.”