Chapter 1
"Claire, move your plate. Brooke wants to sit next to her brother."
Evan's mother, Diane, pulled my napkin away and set her daughter Brooke's phone in the empty place.
I stood there holding the roast beef, my palms aching from the heat even through the oven mitts.
"Then where am I supposed to sit?"
Diane pointed to the folding chair by the kitchen door.
"You still have dessert to serve. It'll be easier if you sit there."
My husband was pouring wine.
"Put the roast down first, honey."
He didn't look at me.
I'd been working since nine that morning to celebrate his company landing a new project.
The food, the flowers, the red wine—all charged to my card.
Now I had to bring over my own chair.
A chair leg caught on the threshold. Evan's younger brother, Tyler, lifted his feet a little and kept looking at his phone.
Evan raised his glass.
"To Mom. I wouldn't be where I am today without your support."
Diane took his hand.
"I always knew you'd make it."
I waited for him to go on.
My dad had set up his first client meeting when he started the business six years ago and had been sending clients his way ever since.
Before that first meeting, he'd been too nervous to sleep, and I'd stayed up with him into the early hours, checking his quote.
He'd already taken a drink.
"Now I can finally say I earned all of this myself."
I put down my fork.
"The client my dad introduced you to referred another project to you just last month."
Evan's smile faded.
"An introduction isn't the same as doing the work for me, Claire."
"I just thought you could thank him."
"Do you have to remind everyone your family has money tonight?"
No one said anything.
Brooke pushed the empty butter dish toward me.
"Could you get some more?"
I didn't move.
Evan got up and went to the kitchen, and the dish hit the table with a sharp clink when he set the butter down.
After dinner, they went into the living room.
I cleared the plates and packed the leftover potatoes into a container.
My phone lit up.
Evan had transferred this month's household money: six hundred dollars.
The food and wine alone had cost $387 that day, and the utility bills were still tucked under a magnet on the fridge.
Then Brooke sent me a link to a handbag.
Fourteen hundred dollars.
"Cream. Express shipping. I need it by Saturday."
I dried my hands and took the bills into the living room.
"Evan, six hundred isn't enough."
He was holding the remote.
"Didn't I give you money last month?"
"That paid for Tyler's car insurance. These are this month's utilities, and that doesn't even include groceries."
Tyler kept his eyes on the TV.
"I said I'd pay you back."
"When?"
Evan frowned.
"Stop acting like a debt collector."
I set the bills in front of him.
"Then you pay them. And I'm not buying your sister that bag."
Brooke sat up straight.
"You could've told me directly instead of announcing it in front of everyone."
"I'm telling you now."
Evan stood and lowered his voice.
"Come into the kitchen."
Once we were by the sink, he glanced toward the living room.
"What is going on with you tonight?"
"I paid for this dinner, spent all day cooking it, and had to find my own seat. Now I'm telling you there isn't enough money for the household, and all you care about is whether they're embarrassed."
He looked at the counter.
"The company needs cash. You still have money in your account."
"That money came from my parents."
"We've been married for six years, and your money is still just yours?"
"What about yours?"
He pressed his lips together.
Diane appeared in the doorway.
"Why argue over a little money?"
"Because there isn't enough," I said.
She looked at me, her tone casual.
"Then give your father a call."
I turned to my husband.
He picked up the bills from the counter, folded them, and pushed them back toward my hand.
"Call tomorrow. Don't mention tonight's argument. He'll get the wrong idea."
I didn't take them.
"You want me to ask him for money, but I'm not allowed to tell him why?"
Evan let go.
The bills fell beside the plates I hadn't finished washing.