My mother snatched her hand back and pressed her fingers to her lips.

“Are you honestly going to throw away your whole family over one bad morning?” she asked.

“It wasn’t a bad morning,” I said.

“And you know that.”

She turned her head to look past my shoulder at the cottage’s small front window.

“I’ll pay your rent on this cottage for the next twelve months,” she said.

“I’ve got eight hundred dollars in cash in my purse right now for Emma’s school clothes, and I’ll write you a check for the rent.”

“I don’t want your money, Patricia,” I said.