“You wrote that your target date was December twenty-sixth.”

Ava took a sharp step backward from the island, her heel clicking hard against the oak floorboards.

“You told Mom you were moving back in with her after Christmas?”

Daniel froze, his hand still flat on the legal disclosure pages.

“Ava, that was just administrative strategy.

I was keeping your mother calm.”

“She told me we were buying the four-bedroom house on Maple Drive,” Ava said.

Her voice caught on the street name, losing its sharp teenage edge.