“Without telling us?”
I looked at her.
“You’re telling me the problem is that I didn’t warn you before stopping the payment?”
She stared back.
“We depend on that money.”
“I know.”
My father stepped forward.
“This tantrum has gone far enough.”
Kendall flinched slightly at the word tantrum.
I noticed.
“Whose tantrum?” I asked.
“Yours,” he said.
“You’re punishing everyone because Gage made one stupid joke.”
I walked to Kendall’s desk.
I picked up the broken lid.
The split ran directly through Gage’s carved name.
“She spent four months making this.”
My mother folded her arms.
“We know.”
“He threw it at her face.”
“He didn’t mean to cut her.”
“He meant to humiliate her.”
Neither answered.
“And you laughed.”
My mother’s expression hardened.
“I did not laugh.”
“You smirked.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Kendall spoke from the table.
“It felt the same.”
The room went quiet.
My mother looked at her for the first time.
Kendall’s cheek had a thin red scrape where the hinge had caught her.
My mother’s eyes went to it.
For one second, I thought she might apologize.
Instead she said, “You know your uncle.
He jokes rough.”
Kendall nodded slowly.
“I know him now.”
My father’s face tightened.
“Don’t be disrespectful to your grandmother.”
I stepped between them.
“No.
You don’t get to demand respect from her after yesterday.”
“We are your parents,” he said.
“And I’m Kendall’s parent.”
That was the line they had never expected me to draw.
For years, being their daughter had meant answering every call.
Being Gage’s sister had meant stepping in.
But being Kendall’s mother meant something different.
It meant she could not grow up watching me fund the people who humiliated her.
My mother lowered her voice.
“So what are we supposed to do about the rent?”
“Pay it.”
She blinked.
“With what?”
