His name was Harold Turner, a retired construction foreman who liked to think of himself as the unquestioned authority of the family, and he stood over me breathing heavily as if he had just finished lifting lumber rather than shoving his own daughter into a metal shelf. I tried to push myself upright but my left arm refused to cooperate and pain shot through my shoulder like a live wire.
“I can’t,” I gasped.
“You can’t?” he mocked harshly while spreading his arms. “You can’t sign a simple piece of paper and help your own family?”
Behind him my sister Brittany leaned in the doorway that connected the garage to the kitchen with her arms crossed and her expression annoyed rather than concerned. “Dad, she is being dramatic,” she said with a shrug that made my stomach twist.
“All this over a mortgage,” my father growled while pointing toward me.
Two weeks earlier the whole disaster had started with a cheerful phone call from Brittany who sounded unusually friendly. “Hey Abby, we are having dinner at Mom and Dad’s on Friday,” she said in a bright voice that immediately made me suspicious.