My sister’s son hurled a dinner fork at me and declared, “Mom says you’re basically the help.” The table erupted in laughter. I was gone before dessert ever reached the plates.

I pulled open the bottom drawer and slid out a thick manila folder with a neat label on the tab:

JESSICA — PROPERTY

I carried it to my desk and spread the contents out like a ritual.

There it was: the private mortgage agreement. The promissory note. The deed of trust with my name on it. My name, printed clean and official in places Jessica had spent years mentally erasing.

I ran my fingertips over the paper and remembered the day those documents were signed.

Four years earlier, Jessica and Marcus sat at my kitchen table, hands clasped like they were praying. Jessica was pregnant then, visibly uncomfortable, her foot tapping nervously against the floor. Marcus looked ashamed, eyes fixed on his knees, his failed business venture hanging around his neck like a concrete block.

“We’ve been denied by everyone,” Jessica said, voice cracking. “Six lenders, Nina. They all said no. They said we need years to repair our credit.”

Marcus swallowed. “I didn’t mean—” he started.

Jessica cut him off with a sharp glance. “Not now.”

They were desperate. I could see it in the way Jessica’s hands trembled when she reached for water, in the way Marcus’s shoulders slumped.