I turned to Mike. “Say something. Please. Tell your mother we are not financing your sister’s life.”
Mike shifted in his chair and stared into his empty cup. His face showed exactly what I feared: panic, guilt, and not one ounce of backbone.
“Diana, come on,” he mumbled. “The papers are already signed. There’s no undoing it now. We can’t just leave them hanging. Maybe we put off our own plans for a year or two. Emily will finish school, get a good job, and then things will even out.”
I stared at him. “A year or two? Mike, this mortgage is for thirty years. Do you honestly think Emily is going to suddenly become responsible in five?”
Susan jumped in before he could answer. “You just don’t want to part with your money. That’s what this is. We welcomed you into this family, and this is how you repay us? I carried those apples all the way here for you.”
She leaned back and shook her head. “My sister warned me before the wedding. She said, ‘That girl will always put herself first.’ Looks like she was right.”
I glanced at the leaking bag in the hallway. Fruit flies were already circling it.
“I am not paying into this,” I said clearly. “That is final.”
“Mike and I have always kept part of our finances separate. If he wants to use his own money to support this plan, that’s his choice. But rent and groceries still get split, and not one dollar of my income is going toward Emily’s mortgage.”
Susan clutched her chest dramatically. “Listen to her. Mike, do you hear how she talks to me?”
“Mom, please, just sit down,” Mike said, scrambling toward the medicine cabinet out of habit. “Take a breath. Here, have some water.”
He shot me a hurt look, the kind that said I was somehow the unreasonable one.
