My Family Planned To Move In Until I Asked For Eight Hundred Sixty Thousand

deliberate clatter. The table went quiet. Natalie put down her phone. Kevin straightened.

“Sophia,” my father began, assuming the particular tone he used when announcing decisions that had already been made. “Your mother and I have been talking.”

I kept my hands still in my lap. My expression did not change.

He gestured vaguely, the way he always did continue reading …