I remembered nights spent calculating whether I could afford groceries after paying for a motel room.
I remembered Laya sleeping curled against me while I searched housing listings on my phone.
I remembered asking Mom whether we could stay with them temporarily and hearing that they needed boundaries.
All that time, strangers had been paying my parents to live in the house Grandmother had bought so Laya and I would never face exactly what we were facing now.
I looked at Dad.
“You knew we were in the shelter.”
His face tightened.
“We knew you were having difficulties.”
“You knew.”
“Maya, there were expenses attached to that house.
Taxes.
Repairs.
Management.
You have no idea what maintaining property involves.”
For several seconds I couldn’t speak.
Then I laughed once.
It was the same shocked sound I’d made outside St.
Brigid when Grandmother first mentioned Hawthorne Street.
“So you protected me from owning a paid-off house by letting my six-year-old sleep in a shelter?”
A cousin near the dining table looked down at the floor.
Dad’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t twist this.”
Mom stepped in.
“Your father and I managed an asset you weren’t capable of managing.
We kept it maintained.
We dealt with tenants.
We dealt with everything while you bounced from crisis to crisis.”
There was the old rhythm again.
My failures.
My instability.
My inability to manage my own life.
Normally, those words made me scramble to prove I wasn’t what she said.
This time I looked at the laptop.
There was my name on the original deed.
I didn’t need to prove anything.
“Where is the rent?” I asked.
Mom blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“If you were only managing the house for me, where is the rent?”
Dad opened his mouth.
Grandmother spoke first.
“Excellent question.”
She opened another set of records.
The money had gone into an account belonging to my parents.
Some had been used for legitimate property expenses.
Grandmother acknowledged that immediately.
Repairs had been made.
Taxes had been paid.
But the rest had not been held for me.
It had been spent.
There were transfers to personal accounts and payments unrelated to Hawthorne Street.
Grandmother didn’t dramatize any of it.
She didn’t need to.
Each line on the screen was worse because she read it calmly.
Mom finally snapped.
“Are you seriously going to humiliate us in front of everyone over money?”
