“Why didn’t you tell me when you walked in the front door Tuesday evening?”

“I was terrified my mother would find out before I had enough saved to move us out,” Ethan said.

“If she knew I had income coming, she would have demanded three hundred dollars a month in rent to keep us dependent on her.”

“So you kept a job offer secret from your wife to hide it from your mother,” I said.

“I was wrong to hide it from you,” Ethan said.