On Father’s Day my millionaire son walked into my freezing apartment, saw the tinned soup on the table, and asked how I was managing on the eight thousand a month his wife sends me. I told him nobody sends me anything.

So we use other words.

Independent.

Private.

Fine.

Managing.

Those words are much easier.

Thea eventually sat down.

She looked at Emmett.

“I tried to tell you.”

He looked at her.

“When?”

“September last year.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She looked at me.

“Because your father asked me not to.”

Emmett turned toward me.

I nodded.

She had tried.

Once.

She had told me she wasn’t comfortable anymore.

She had said Emmett should see the apartment.

And I had used the sentence I had been using since 1998.

I’d rather he didn’t worry.

Thea had said okay.

The call lasted four minutes.

I had forgotten about it.

She hadn’t.

That realization hurt more than I expected.

Because Thea had been carrying a secret she never wanted.

For three years, she had been sending money into an account she believed I was using.

She had been telling her husband his father was comfortable because I told her to.

She had been watching him trust the arrangement.

And she had been alone in the middle of it.

I had put her there.

Not Emmett.

Not the bank.

Me.

That evening, I opened the first envelope.

It took me nearly ten minutes to make myself do it.