“No.”
I stepped inside but remained near the open door.
“This is trespassing.”
Arthur’s face reddened.
“Watch your tone.”
“Get out.”
“We are your parents.”
“Get out.”
“You don’t speak to me like that.”
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the authority in his voice suddenly sounded ridiculous inside a home whose rent, furniture, utilities, and security he had never paid for.
“You stood in your yard six days ago and told me I wasn’t family.”
“That was a joke.”
“Everybody laughed.”
“You’ve always been too sensitive.”
I looked at Marcus.
He had not spoken.
“What is the $6,500 for?”
He shrugged.
“Stuff.”
“Marcus.”
“Don’t interrogate him,” Eleanor snapped.
That told me more than his answer had.
I looked back at my mother.
“You tried to take almost seven thousand dollars from an account I mostly funded because Marcus needs money, and none of you will tell me why.”
“He’s going through something.”
“What?”
“That is his business.”
“Then it is his bill.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“This attitude started when you got with Noah.”
There it was.
He said Noah’s name with the familiar contempt he used whenever he wanted to suggest my relationship had somehow contaminated me.
“He’s turned you against your family.”
I felt something go completely still inside me.
“Leave Noah out of this.”
“He’s filled your head with—”
“No.”
My father stopped.
It might have been the first time in my adult life I interrupted him without immediately softening afterward.
“Noah has treated me more like family in two and a half years than you have in twenty-eight.”
Eleanor gasped theatrically.
Arthur’s jaw clenched.
Marcus finally looked up.
I opened the front door.
“You have two options. Walk out, or I call the police and report that three people entered my apartment using a key I did not authorize for this purpose and refused to leave.”
My mother stared at me.
“You would call the police on your own mother?”
“You said I’m not family.”
The words landed harder than I intended.
Nobody had a reply.
They left.
Arthur deliberately hit my shoulder as he passed.
Not hard enough to injure me.
Hard enough to communicate contempt.
I did not respond.
I shut the door.
Locked it.
Then leaned against it and shook.
Ten minutes later, I called Noah.
He arrived carrying a drill, a new deadbolt set, and dinner.
He did not ask permission before changing the locks.
That night, while we worked, Noah opened a folder on his laptop.
“You need to see something.”
Inside was a spreadsheet.
Dates.
Amounts.
Requests.
Every major family emergency I had mentioned over the previous year.
Beside them were screenshots of texts I had sent Noah, copies of bank transfers I had shown him, and notes explaining the stated reason for each payment.
I stared at him.
“You made this?”
“I started after the third time your mother asked for money and you forgot she’d asked for almost the same amount two months earlier.”
I scrolled.
Car.
Dental bill.
House repair.
Marcus rent.