But it was already complicated long before that moment.
The lawyer cleared his throat, turned to the final pages, and began reading a section of the will my parents did not even know existed.
Their smiles stiffened before he finished the first sentence, and I could see confusion slowly turning into something sharper and more desperate.
They thought they had walked into easy money, but they had no idea my uncle had prepared for exactly this situation.
What he wrote there did not just take away their expectations, it destroyed any chance they had of taking anything from me.
Before my parents left, our life in Harbor Point looked normal from the outside, with neighbors who waved from their porches and summer evenings filled with the sound of kids riding bikes along cracked sidewalks.
Inside our house, things were already breaking down in ways no one else could see.
My dad, Gregory Collins, was supposed to work at a local repair garage, but most weekends he disappeared to a nearby casino and came home smelling like beer and frustration.