“I was trying to keep the roof from collapsing on us all.”

“By what? Starving your kids and making me beg for yogurt?!”

Diana cleared her throat. “Don’t yell at him in my house.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t be hiding his second house from his wife.”

Footsteps echoed behind us.

“Wow,” a woman said. “She figured it out.”

Mimi stepped into view.

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” she replied. “It’s always been his job to clean up the mess.”

“You haven’t paid a single bill, Mimi. Someone has to clean up.”

“She kicked me out, remember?”

“And you left me with all of this.”

“You volunteered, Michael.”

I turned to him. “You’re handling everything — her bills, food, appointments. And you never told me.”

“She begged me, babe, what else could I do?”

“You chose her silence over your family.”

“I didn’t want you to think she was a burden.”

I exhaled slowly. “You don’t get to weaponize love like that, Michael.”

Back home, Nicole slept against me. Micah colored dinosaurs at the table. Michael hovered, lost.

“Sit down.”

“Flo—”

“Michael, sit down.”

“I’m not your employee. I am not your child. And I am not someone you get to manage.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have taken my card.”

“I’m sorry. I was scared and ashamed.”

“You did fail. You failed me.”

“And now you’re going to fix it.”