“You spent our mother’s money.

You spent the money I earned in eighty-hour weeks in forty-degree heat on the other side of the world so that she would never have to work again.

And you put her on her knees anyway.” There was scrambling on the line, and then Julian’s voice, the arrogance entirely gone out of it, replaced by something small and frantic.

“Evelyn, listen, we’ll sign anything, a confession, a promissory note, we’ll pay back every dollar, just drop the complaint, please, don’t do this to my life.” “You did this to your life,” I said, “the second you shut that door in my face and called my mother the maid.

You can explain the joke to a judge.” And I hung up, and I blocked the number, and I went to check on my mother, who was sleeping, safe, in her own bed.