“Mike,” I said, ignoring all of them, “we need to talk about tomorrow’s rent.”
The landlord was due at ten the next morning. We paid in cash every month. By agreement, we each contributed $950.
I had already set aside my half in an envelope in the dresser drawer. Mike’s face went pale the second I asked.
He took a sip of tea, choked on it, and coughed.
“Diana, there’s… kind of a situation,” he said.
My eyes landed on a receipt lying on the table among the pastry crumbs.
I picked it up.
Furniture Store “Comfort Home.” Item: sectional sofa, model “Prestige.” Delivery and assembly included. Total: $2,250.
The kitchen went silent.
Somewhere in the hallway, a fruit fly buzzed over the apples.
“Did you buy a sofa with the rent money?” I asked in a voice so calm it startled even me.
“Emily needed somewhere to sleep,” Susan snapped before Mike could answer. “What did you expect? Bare concrete floors?”
“Mike,” I said, looking only at him, “did you spend our rent money on furniture for your sister?”
He twisted the edge of the tablecloth in his fingers. “Yes. I had to. And I put the rest on my credit card for the delivery guys.”
Then he looked at me with that same pathetic hopefulness I had seen too many times before.
“You’ve got savings. Just cover the full rent this month, okay? I’ll pay you back when I get my quarterly bonus.”
I laughed once, without humor. “Your bonus? That’ll go straight to your credit card bill. My savings are not your emergency fund.”
Emily finally looked up from her phone. “Honestly, Mike, I don’t know how you live with someone this stingy. It’s a couch. I’m your sister. I need basic things too.”
Mike straightened a little, emboldened by his audience. “Mom’s right, Diana. She sees things more clearly than you do. She’s had real life experience. You’re acting selfish. You make more than I do anyway. You could carry us this month and it wouldn’t kill you.”
I looked at all three of them.
Three people sitting at my kitchen table, eating pastries bought with money that should have gone toward keeping a roof over our heads—and somehow I was the villain.
In that moment I saw them clearly.
Susan was a bulldozer who would flatten any boundary in her path. Emily was a parasite who thought comfort was a birthright. And Mike—my husband, the man I had planned a future with—was not a partner at all. He was a grown man still taking direction from his mother and financing his sister’s whims with other people’s money.
Something in me went quiet.
