Because a load-bearing wall that understands it is load-bearing might decide to move.

The entire architecture of the family’s contempt for me had been, at bottom, a device for keeping the wall from noticing what it held up.

And the night I ordered my son a ribeye and cancelled the wine, the wall noticed.

Everything after that — the ruin, the sold house, the repossessed car, the mediation — was just the building learning what happens when the part it despised decides to stop holding.

When I froze my credit and refused to co-sign, the bank denied their refinance.

They had to list the vacation property.

And the lender repossessed Lucienne’s car when she failed to move it into her own name.

Chapter 20 — Coco Has a Diet

She called me twenty times before I answered.

“You destroyed my credit!” she shrieked.