Chapter 1
For several seconds after I pushed the spreadsheet back, nobody moved.
The paper slid across the coffee table and stopped beside Dad’s reading glasses. One corner lifted in the air-conditioning before settling again. I kept my hands in my lap so no one would see them shake.
Dad looked from the spreadsheet to me. His gray eyebrows drew together behind his glasses.
“I’m not asking you to decide the whole future tonight,” he said. “I’m asking for an answer about the house.”
“You already made the decision,” I said.
His mouth tightened. “That’s not fair.”
Mom stood near the hallway, one hand resting against the wall. She had been quiet during the argument, but not uncertain. I could see that in the way she watched Dad instead of me.
“We all have to adjust,” she said. “Martha’s bringing a baby into the house. That changes things.”
Martha remained in the doorway, her coffee mug held loosely against her stomach. Her long dark hair fell over one shoulder. She glanced at the spreadsheet, then at me, and gave a small shrug.
“I didn’t make the numbers,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You just benefit from them.”
Her expression barely changed, but her fingers tightened around the mug.
Dad picked up the spreadsheet. “The numbers show what it costs to keep this household running. If you help with the baby, your rent stays where it is. If you refuse, we have to charge you more. That’s the only way to make this workable.”
“The childcare hours are on the rent sheet.”
“They’re part of the arrangement.”
“They’re not rent.”
Dad exhaled through his nose. “You live here. You use the utilities. You eat the food. You can’t act like you’re a guest whenever it’s convenient.”
I looked at the printed columns. The figures were neat, black, and final-looking, as if the right alignment of the numbers made the demand reasonable.
“What exactly are the hours?” I asked.
He hesitated for half a second. “We’ll work that out.”
“Before or after you raise my rent?”
Mom’s face hardened. “Abby, this is becoming an argument over wording.”
“It’s an argument over whether I’m being charged for work I never agreed to do.”
Martha looked toward the kitchen. “I’m tired.”
That ended the conversation more effectively than anything I had said. Dad folded the spreadsheet once, carefully, and tucked it under his arm.
“You have until tomorrow morning,” he said. “I expect an answer before you leave for school.”
He walked toward the kitchen. Mom followed him, pausing only long enough to give me a disappointed look. Martha stayed behind for a moment.
“I didn’t ask him to do that,” she said.
I waited.
She looked down at her mug. “I mean, I need help, obviously. But I didn’t tell him to make you pay more.”
“Did you tell him you didn’t want me watching the baby?”
Her silence answered before she did.
“I don’t know what I want yet,” she said.
Then she turned and followed our parents, leaving me alone with the paper’s faint rectangular outline on the coffee table.
I waited until the kitchen faucet came on before taking out my phone.
The spreadsheet was still under Dad’s arm, but he had left the second page on the table. I lifted it, angled it toward the lamp, and took three pictures. One showed the entire page. One showed the column labeled “household adjustments.” The last focused on the handwritten figure at the bottom: the proposed rent increase.
I opened the notes app and typed what I remembered from the first page.
Rent increase: $425.
Childcare: weekdays, morning and afternoon.
Basement expenses: flooring, storage, baby supplies.
Answer demanded by tomorrow morning.
I added the time at the top: 8:17 p.m.
Then I wrote the exact words Dad had used before my questions had stopped the room.
Help with the baby or you’ll pay more rent.
Seeing it on my screen made my stomach tighten. Spoken aloud, it had sounded like a threat disguised as a household rule. Written down, it looked even less like rent.
I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Dad was standing by the counter, checking something on his phone. Mom was opening a cabinet. Martha sat at the table, her mug untouched.
“Where did the basement expenses come from?” I asked.
Dad didn’t look up. “The basement needs to be ready.”
“For what?”
“For Martha.”
Martha’s eyes lifted briefly. “I didn’t choose every item.”
“You’re moving into the basement,” I said.
“I know.”
“Did you approve the flooring?”
“No.”
“Storage shelves?”
She shook her head.
Dad set his phone down. “This is exactly why we need a plan. You keep treating normal family expenses like an accusation.”
“Then they should be easy to explain.”
Mom shut the cabinet harder than necessary. “You’re making your sister feel guilty for needing a place to stay.”
“I’m asking why her expenses are being used to calculate my rent.”
Nobody answered directly.
Dad picked up his phone again. “Think carefully before you make this harder than it has to be.”
I carried my water upstairs without replying. In my room, I closed the door and sat at my desk. My cardigan caught on the chair as I lowered myself into it. Through the floor, I could hear footsteps moving across the living room, then the muted scrape of something being pushed against a wall.
I opened a blank document on my laptop and made three columns: what I owed, what I was being asked to do, and what I could verify.
Under the first column, I listed my current rent and the utilities Dad had always mentioned. Under the second, I wrote childcare hours, basement costs, and the deadline for an answer. Under the third, I left most of the page empty.
That emptiness frightened me more than the number.
I didn’t have enough saved to move out tomorrow. I didn’t have a second job waiting or a secret apartment key in my purse. I had a teacher’s salary, a car that needed regular repairs, and a family that knew exactly how much I depended on the house.
But dependence wasn’t the same thing as agreement.
I opened the spreadsheet photos again and enlarged the bottom section. Beside “household adjustments,” there were charges for paint, shelving, a small refrigerator, and several boxes of items labeled only as “supplies.” None of them had dates. None had receipts attached.
I copied every figure into my document.
Then I created a folder and named it Household Records.
Before turning off the light, I sent the photos to myself by email. I checked that they had arrived, saved them again, and wrote one final note beneath the others:
Do not announce leaving until the numbers are clear.
Downstairs, Dad called my name.
I stayed still, listening to his footsteps stop beneath my door.
“Abby,” he said, louder this time. “Tomorrow morning.”
I looked at the list on my screen.
“I heard you,” I called back.
His footsteps remained there for another moment. Then they moved away.
May you like
I kept the laptop open and began searching through old rent transfers, utility statements, and messages about the basement. I wasn’t ready to tell them I planned to leave. Not yet.
First, I needed to know whether the spreadsheet described a household budget—or a bill they had invented for me.
