His father had sat there at his own birthday dinner transferring money out of his savings on his phone to cover the gap.

The sister-in-law had put several hundred dollars on a store card she barely used.

Four different cards, Derek said, four cards scraped together to cover the bill and a bare-minimum tip, in front of the whole family, on Dad’s sixty-fifth birthday.

He said it as an accusation, as the list of my crimes, and I listened to the entire list with my hands folded in my lap, and when he had finished I said, mildly, that it sounded as though they had figured it out, and that I thought it showed real resourcefulness, and I watched my husband stare at me as though I had begun speaking a language that had no words for the thing he wanted me to feel, which was sorry.

Chapter 13 — Which Insult