“You can’t just kick us out of our own room,” Sabrina said, planting her feet on my hardwood floor. “We live here.” I set my teacup down on the windowsill, unhurried. “You stay here,” I corrected. “There’s a difference, and you’ve spent three years pretending not to know it. This is my house. My name is on the deed, the mortgage was paid off by my late husband and me, and every bill that keeps the lights on has come out of my account. You don’t have a room here. You have a room here because I allowed it, and this afternoon I stopped allowing it.”

Caleb stepped forward, using the soft voice he saved for managing me. “Mom, come on. You’re upset about the cupcake thing. Let’s all calm down and talk about this like family.” “Family,” I repeated. “You used that word every time I questioned the arrangement. Families help each other, you’d say, right before you added another subscription to my account. So let’s talk like family, Caleb. A family member laughed while his wife told his mother she wasn’t successful enough to eat a cupcake at a party his mother paid for. That’s the family we’ve been. I’m done funding it.” Sabrina’s red face had gone pale now, because she was beginning to hear something underneath my calm that Caleb hadn’t caught yet.