The text came at 2 a.m. like it was good news—my mother casually told me she’d sold my house while I was away, using an old legal document, and spent the money on my sister’s wedding. When I told her to stop the deal, she laughed—called me selfish, dramatic, ungrateful—and said I could “explain myself” at the family reunion.

Once the convoy split and the Morettis headed toward a temporary Maryland facility so compartmented even I did not know the address until after they arrived, Crawford turned our vehicle north. “We’re not waiting on this,” he said.

I knew what he meant before he said it. “The reunion.”

“Yes.”

My family reunion that year was being held at my uncle’s farm outside Harrisburg, a place with rolling fields, an old white farmhouse, a pole barn full of equipment my uncle discussed with the reverence other men reserve for scripture, and a tradition of large Sunday lunches that my mother regarded as equal parts sentimental duty and social stage. She had been looking forward to it for months because Rachel’s wedding was close enough to monopolize conversation, and my mother loved any gathering where she could discuss floral arrangements, venue linens, seating politics, and costs in the tone of a woman announcing sovereign debts.