It helped me realize how many things I had spent years refusing to see.” And the judge, having heard the owner of record, and the sworn affidavit, and the certified deed, and my father’s plain testimony, issued an order granting full possession of the property to me, and entered a judgment of eviction against my mother, with a thirty-day voluntary compliance window.

My mother vacated the apartment on the twentieth day.

A neighbor called to tell me she was packing boxes into a moving truck, that Karla had come to help her, and that the two of them had reportedly argued the entire time.

My father did not come to help.

There are limits, it turns out, even to my father’s guilt.

Chapter 20 — More, Please