None of them asked where I was going to sleep.
At 8:37, I heard Dad talking to Logan on speakerphone. Logan asked whether I would continue covering the rent. Dad answered, “She’ll complain, but she always pays.”
Madison laughed in the background.
That laugh did something the insult had not. It made me certain.
Dad left at 8:55 wearing the jacket I had bought him for his birthday. He looked at the moving boxes and said, “I expect everything finished by noon.”
“It will be.”
He smiled because he heard obedience.
I meant finality.
Before leaving, I printed an accounting of three years of rent, utilities, parking, groceries, furnishings, rides, and household expenses. The total was more than $300,000. On the cover page, I wrote: Financial support ends with the lease.
At 10:45, I signed the surrender documents downstairs. At 11:41, I returned every key, access card, garage pass, and mailbox key. Management scheduled all credentials connected to the penthouse for deactivation at noon.
My hand paused over the last red access card. I remembered Dad teaching me to drive, Logan asleep against my shoulder on a childhood flight, Mom dancing barefoot in our old kitchen.
Then Dad sent one final instruction.
“Leave champagne glasses out. Madison wants arrival footage.”
I placed the card on the desk.
At 11:58, I walked away with Mom’s scarf in my bag.