Dad’s truck payment.
Jenny’s daycare auto-draft.
The monthly transfer to my parents’ mortgage account.
Canceled.
Every single one.
Jenny crossed the room so fast her slippers scraped against the hardwood.
“You’re insane.”
“No,” I said. “I’m awake.”
My daughter shifted sleepily against my shoulder, completely unaware that the entire atmosphere had changed around her.
My father finally muted the football game.
That was the first real sign of panic.
“Emily,” he said carefully, using the calm voice he only used when money was involved, “you’re overreacting.”
I stared at him.
Overreacting.
Not when they mocked my child.
Not when my mother treated my baby like something shameful.
Not when they spent years using me like an ATM with a pulse.
Only now.
Only when the funding stopped.
I tapped the screen again.
Then I placed the phone face-up on the entry table.
A family group chat filled the screen.
Not the regular one.
A second thread.
One they had forgotten I could still access because Jenny once logged into it on my iPad years ago and never removed the account.
At the top of the screen was my mother’s message from two nights earlier.
“Please make sure Emily doesn’t stay too long this year. The baby’s face is upsetting people.”
