Three days later, at nine in the morning, a moving truck backed into the driveway. Loretta stood on the porch in her robe, smiling, certain it belonged to Curtis and Heather. “Finally,” she called through the doorway. “Put the boxes in the master suite.” The movers walked past her without a word and began wrapping my desk, my art, and the leather sofa I had bought myself. Loretta’s smile froze.

I stepped outside holding a thin folder. Mr. Okafor, the property manager, parked behind the truck at the same moment and joined me. “Mrs. Dalton,” he said to Loretta, “the lease for this house is in one name only, and it is not yours.” Then he opened the folder and handed her one page: a text from Brian to Curtis, offering the house for eighteen months for eighteen thousand dollars, cash.