“Did he give you a receipt?” Paige asked from the counter.

“No,” Heather said.

“He said he’d put it toward the security deposit.”

“The security deposit came out of my joint savings on Thursday,” I said.

Ben started crying in his car seat in the sedan outside, his short two-word phrases drifting in through the open kitchen window.

Heather stood up slowly, her hands resting on the back of her chair.

“He told my mother you were heartless,” Heather said.