Nobody forced you.

I turned the phone toward her and she kept smoothing the napkin and would not look.

Then tell me what the five hundred and fifty pays for, I said.

Why does there have to be an itemized list.

Because I am asking.

You have always been generous, she said.

Now you want receipts?

I want an answer, I said, and she pushed the folded napkin toward the middle of the coffee table and said, you are making this much bigger than it is, and I thought, no, I am making it exactly the size it already was, I am only the first person in this family to measure it out loud.