Mrs. Prescott’s chin trembled, but I did not soften. Danielle was still gripping the edge of the table, waiting for me to fold the way I always had, to apologize for making everyone uncomfortable, to let the whole thing dissolve into another difficult night we never spoke of again. She had told me through my own bedroom door that I had nowhere else to go. She had that exactly backward.

“You’re mistaken about who has nowhere to go,” I said quietly. I slid one more page across the table, the one I had signed at midnight while they slept off their hotel comfort upstairs. Danielle snatched it up, and I watched her read the first line twice, then a third time, the color draining from her face the way the power had drained from my house. It was not a bill. It was something far worse for them.