“No police?”
“No police for a toy,” I said. “Safe adults help. They do not scare little kids into silence.”
She nodded.
I lay beside her until her breathing evened out.
Then I went to the kitchen.
The house was dark.
My laptop lit the table blue.
I opened the account folder I had made two years earlier, the one I never talked about because I was embarrassed by how much I had been doing.
Kendra Wallace car loan support.
Phyllis Cross utility transfer.
Insurance contribution.
Emergency grocery card.
Every line looked different after that couch.
Not generous.
Not loving.
Evidence.
My mother had waited until the officers were gone before she stepped close enough that Charlotte could not hear.
“Keep paying your sister’s bills,” she had said softly, “or I’ll drag you into court as an unfit mother.”
That was how casually she said it.
Like she was reminding me to bring a casserole.
