“No,” Grace said.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the room like a blade. Everyone turned. She was pale, but she stood completely straight.

“I offered Avery half my closet when she arrived,” Grace said, staring directly at her grandfather. “I gave her my blue coat. I let her use my laptop.

I moved my art supplies so she’d have a desk. I didn’t say no to sharing. I said no when Grandma told me to sleep on a broken couch in the basement because my room was ‘more useful’ to her plans.”

Avery, lingering in the hallway, let out a choked sob and ran up the stairs.

I spent four more days tearing through the attic. Finally, at the bottom of a box of decade-old tax files, I found it: a carbon copy of a cashier’s check from my father’s bank, made out to O’Connor Roofing, dated the exact week of Richard’s supposed “payment.”