It had been gradual. Favors first — Derek cleaning the gutters, Melissa cooking. Then the surgery gave them a reason to move her to the ground floor, and somehow her bedroom furniture never came down with her.

Her cell phone “broke,” and Derek convinced her it was cheaper to use a spare on his family plan.

“Nobody asks for your whole life in one day, Iris,” she said, wiping her eyes. “They just ask for one hallway at a time.”

When I asked why she never told me, she wrung her hands. “If I complained, you’d have broken your contract and flown home. You’d have lost your visa and everything you bled for.

I wasn’t going to cost you your future twice.”

Twice. She’d been carrying my father’s medical debt as a personal fault the entire time.