“You sat on the living room sofa while she took my keys out of my bag,” I said.

“You watched me struggle to get formula without a car.”

Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, his thumb pressing hard against the brass edge of his key ring.

“I let her use paperwork as an excuse to control something you were paying for,” Ethan said.

The words were simple, but hearing him say them out loud stripped away the thin shield I had been holding onto since yesterday.

I had wanted to believe he simply didn’t know how far she had gone with the money, that he was caught in the middle of a family misunderstanding he didn’t understand.