“How much?” I asked.

Brielle glanced at my mother.

That look should have warned me.

“Twenty-seven thousand.”

I laughed so abruptly that pain tore through my incision, turning the laugh into a gasp.

“You came here for twenty-seven thousand dollars?”

“It’s a deposit.”

“It’s a birthday party.”

“It’s my thirtieth.”

“You’ll survive turning thirty without an orchid wall.”

My mother moved closer.

“You don’t have to be cruel.”

I looked at her.

“Cruel?”

Clara shifted, so I lowered my voice.

“Diane, my baby isn’t even a full day old.”

Her lips tightened.

She hated when I called her Diane.

Brielle crossed her arms.

“So you’re refusing?”

“Yes.”

“After you said you’d help me?”

“I said I might contribute something reasonable. A dinner. A photographer. Maybe a few thousand. Not the down payment on a house.”

“You can afford it.”

Something about that sentence caught my attention.

“What?”