Rebecca let out a bitter laugh. “So now you think you’re independent?”

Margaret took the envelope with copies of her receipts and placed it in Daniel’s hands. “No. I’m only remembering that I always was.”

And she closed the door while her son kept calling her Mom from the hallway.

Three weeks later, Daniel and Rebecca sued Margaret in civil court. They demanded compensation for “emotional distress, family harm, and loss of essential household property.”

Margaret read the notice while sitting beside the window of her apartment. Outside, the bougainvillea moved in the cold December wind.

She was not afraid. She boiled water in Arthur’s blue teapot, took out her folder, and added the lawsuit to the back, the way someone files away another unpleasant receipt.