My dad saw me limping down our quiet street, my baby on my hip—no car, no help. He frowned. “Why are you walking? I bought you an SUV.” I looked at him, took a breath… and finally whispered the truth he was never meant to hear.

Dad didn’t answer. He looked past her into the apartment. “Where’s Derek?”

Patricia straightened. “Excuse me?”

“I said, where’s Derek?”

She folded the towel more neatly, buying herself a second. “He’s in the shower. What’s this about?”

Dad shifted Evan higher on his shoulder. “It’s about my daughter limping home in hundred-degree heat while her car sits in your parking lot.”

Patricia’s eyes snapped to me, accusing, as if I had violated some sacred rule simply by letting myself be seen. “Lauren has been told repeatedly,” she said, each word clipped and gleaming, “that while she is living here, she needs to respect the rules of this household.”

Dad’s face didn’t change. “One of your rules is taking transportation away from the mother of an infant?”

“That car belongs to my son,” Patricia said. “And frankly, if Lauren were more responsible with money, perhaps she wouldn’t be in this situation.”

I felt the old reflex rise immediately, the need to explain, to soften, to apologize for taking up space in front of someone who had already decided I was a burden. Dad spared me from it.

“Interesting,” he said. “Because my daughter is the one who’s been making the payments.”