“Why did you answer my security questions? Why did you try to change the backup email?”
Her eyes flashed.
“Because you would’ve said no.”
The hallway went completely still.
Even Lacy seemed to hear it after the words left her mouth.
Because you would’ve said no.
Four words that destroyed the story she had spent three weeks building.
You do not need someone’s permission when something belongs to you.
Lacy had just admitted she knew the money was mine, knew I would refuse, and took steps around that refusal anyway.
Diane sat down on the edge of the dining chair behind her.
The leftover birthday balloons were gone, but I could still picture them tied to those same chairs while my mother called me selfish for objecting to seventeen thousand dollars disappearing.
Lacy’s voice became smaller.
“I was going to pay it back.”
I looked at her.
“When?”
“When the studio started making money.”
“You told me I wasn’t getting it back.”
“I was angry.”
“You told me I deserved to lose it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said it would have been wasted on me.”
Diane covered her mouth with one hand.
Lacy turned on her.
“Why are you acting shocked? You agreed Paige had plenty.”
My mother looked at me then.
That hurt more than I expected.
Not because it surprised me, exactly.
I had already watched her choose Lacy’s comfort over my loss.
But there is a difference between suspecting someone excused your betrayal and hearing that person’s name attached to the decision.
“Did you know she was taking it?” I asked.
Diane’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
“Mom.”
“I knew she needed money for the studio.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She told me she had a way to get it.”
“That wasn’t my question either.”
Diane’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know how much.”
I stared at her.
It was not an answer that saved her.
It was an answer that told me she had known enough.
Lacy began crying then, but not the way I had cried in Hannah’s guest room with my face turned toward the wall because I was ashamed of how badly my own family had hurt me.
Lacy cried angrily.
She demanded that I withdraw the complaint.
She said an investigation could destroy her business before it began.
She said a charge would follow her.
She said I was ruining her future over money.
That last sentence almost broke through my calm.
“My future,” I said, “is where you got the money.”
She stopped.
For three years, every night shift had represented something specific to me.
A bathroom tile.
A closing cost.
A secondhand couch.
A front door that locked behind me and belonged to me.
