Dorian sent twenty-three text messages before midnight.

The first several defended his mother. She shouldn’t have touched the thermostat, but you scared her with all that legal talk. Then he tried to shrink the whole thing. Are we really throwing away five years over an air conditioning setting? After midnight, the tone shifted. Come home and we’ll talk privately.

Mom can stay downstairs from now on, and I’ll pay more toward the house.

And then, finally, the message Marisol read twice, sitting on the edge of her hotel bed. She honestly didn’t know the house was separate property in your name.