The number she quoted was substantial, more than I had expected, for a service I had not chosen, at a location I had never visited, arranged by people who had spent the last decade treating my financial support of their family as something they were entitled to rather than something I chose to give.
I sat with the phone against my ear, and I thought about the past 12 years.
I thought about the mortgage I had carried alone when Daniel’s work dried up the first time.
I thought about the month I quietly paid my in-laws’ heating bill in January because they called Daniel and told him they were cold, and Daniel came to me, and I wrote the check without comment because that’s what you do for family.
I thought about every birthday, every holiday, and every quiet sacrifice I had made for people who were at this exact moment asking me to fund a funeral for a man who had spent 2 and 1/2 years lying to my face.
“I need a few days,” I said.
“The deadline is tomorrow,” my mother-in-law said.
“Then you’ll need to cover it, and I’ll reimburse you,” I said.
Silence.
