“Your mother asked me to declare myself mentally unfit,” I said.

Julian laughed, a dry sound with no humor in it.

“You’re a contract auditor from a two-bedroom rental in Dayton, Vivian.

You were working for sixty dollars an hour before I brought you into this house.”

“I was working for sixty-two dollars an hour, and my records were clean,” I said.

He stepped toward the bench, unbuckling his leather belt and pulling it through the brass loop with a snap.

“We brought you in to balance ledgers, Vivian.