The text came at 2 a.m. like it was good news—my mother casually told me she’d sold my house while I was away, using an old legal document, and spent the money on my sister’s wedding. When I told her to stop the deal, she laughed—called me selfish, dramatic, ungrateful—and said I could “explain myself” at the family reunion.

After the vehicles pulled away, the yard remained frozen for a strange extra beat, as though the scene had ended but no one had yet been told whether to clap, disperse, or call a lawyer. My uncle finally cleared his throat and said everyone should go inside because it was getting cold. People obeyed because ordinary instructions become precious after catastrophe. I stood where I was until the field beyond the barn blurred and sharpened again. Crawford came back from a call and stopped beside me.

“You all right?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said. “You’d worry me if you were.”

We drove back to D.C. in darkness.