My stepmother called at 11:47 p.m. on the first night in the beach house I bought with my own money and told me she and my father were moving in the next day, that they were taking the master suite, that her daughter would get the best ocean-view room

“Understood.” A beat. “Do not confront them. Do not throw them out today. Do not, under any circumstances, become the dramatic daughter in any version of the story she gets to tell first. Send me everything. Photos, texts, whatever you have.”

“I’m already doing it.”

“I know,” he said, and because he knew me well enough now, the sentence wasn’t patronizing. It was an acknowledgment of method. “Give me two hours.”

By lunchtime, while Vanessa directed florists over the phone from my terrace and Khloe filmed a room tour for an audience I prayed did not include anyone with a functioning moral compass, Adrien’s team was pulling records.

By late afternoon, he called back.

“Sit down,” he said.

I was standing in my own back-bedroom exile staring at the service drive, but I sat on the edge of the bed anyway.