Trent folded his arms in the doorway. “Walter, we’ve got our own responsibilities. Madison’s private-school tuition is due. We can’t afford another mouth to feed.”

Another mouth. That was what I’d become in my own daughter’s kitchen.

Part of me wanted to remind them of everything I’d done — the eleven thousand dollars I loaned Trent for the down payment on that very house, the tuition I covered when Rebecca’s scholarship came up short, the weekends I spent driving hundreds of miles to tile bathrooms, mend fences, build patios, paint nurseries.

Every check I wrote without expecting repayment, because parents aren’t supposed to keep score. But standing there, surrounded by family photographs that somehow didn’t include me in a single frame, I understood something.

None of those years had earned me a place to sleep.

“There’s a motel by the interstate,” Trent said, quietly steering me toward the front door. “Weekly rates. Pretty affordable.”