I picked up my phone and typed my banking password with a calm I did not feel. The notification I had ignored all morning was waiting on top, a bold red alert from Charlotte Federal Credit Union: “Savings account balance: $0.00.” Eight months of overtime, gone. Below it sat the transfer record, dated six days earlier, sent to an account ending in 4417.

My hands went cold. That was why Mateo laughed so easily at the door, and why Kendra spoke to me like staff. They were not only certain I would cook and clean. They were certain I could not leave. Then a second alert slid across the screen: “Your return flight to Charlotte has been cancelled by the account holder, Mateo Reyes.” I was stranded twelve hundred miles from home with a chore list and my husband’s credit card.