Shannon makes lawyer money and she already signed.

Let her carry it.

Just hold Mom’s hand.”

Chapter 11 — Nobody Is Paying

I stood in the doorway with the sealed envelope against my ribs and watched my brother physically block my father from discovering his own empty accounts while herding me toward a debt that would ruin me, and I thought: no.

Not one more dollar.

Not one more day.

It is a small word, no. I had said it so rarely to my family that I could count the times, and every one of them had cost me days of guilt and a flurry of calls about how selfish I’d become, how I’d forgotten where I came from, how family was supposed to help family.