Claire started crying then, not prettily, not strategically. Her shoulders caved. Her face collapsed. She looked less like the sister who had stood on the porch insisting I was overreacting and more like a person who had finally run out of places to put her own excuses.
“I knew,” she whispered. “Not at first, not exactly at first, but then… yes. I knew.”
My father nodded once, and I saw the pain of it move through him like something physical.
“Why?” my mother asked.
Claire looked at the floor. “Because Daniel said it made sense. Because he kept saying it would only be for a few weekends. Because he said you didn’t really need all that space. Because he said Ethan would never notice the difference if we handled it right. Because…” She wiped at her face. “Because I was scared.”
“Of what?” I asked.
She laughed once, a terrible little sound. “Everything. Money. My life. My marriage. The fact that I’m almost forty and still one missed payment away from disaster. The fact that you gave Mom and Dad something huge and beautiful and I had nothing to offer but a husband who kept talking like the world owed him a return.”
At least that was honest.