The sun came up over the Ohio River.
The cardinals were singing in the lilacs when I parked one street down at 6:55.
A white Range Rover was at the curb in front of 4127 Lynden Ridge.
A black F-150 was parked behind it.
The lights were on in my dining room.
I walked up the porch steps.
The Ring chimed once on my phone in my pocket, registering me.
The front door was closed.
I unlocked it with my own key and walked in.
The foyer was full of brown moving boxes that were not mine.
A cardboard tube of rugs leaned against my stained-glass fixture.
The smell of fresh coffee was coming from my kitchen.
They were in the dining room.
My father was standing by the window.
He looked 20 years older than he had at 3:00 in the morning.
He had a folded blue document in his hand.
My mother was beside him with both hands folded around a small porcelain cup.
My sister was in the middle of my dining room in white linen, holding her toddler against her hip.
Madison was wearing a yellow corduroy jumper.
She had a graham cracker in one fist.
Cassidy turned when she heard me.
She smiled.
It was not the smile of somebody surprised.
It was the smile of somebody who had been rehearsing.
“Wallace?”
I did not answer.
My father took half a step toward me.
“You have 48 hours to leave.”
I looked at him.
“You have 48 hours to leave,” he repeated. “We will store your boxes for you in the garage. You do not need to make a scene. Cassidy bought this place back legitimately. You can have the time to find another arrangement.”
I looked at the blue document in his hand.
“That’s a purchase contract.”
“Yes.”
“For $200,000.”
“That is correct.”
“Made out to a company called First Mariamont Holdings.”
Cassidy’s smile did not change, but the muscle on the right side of her jaw did.
“That is correct,” my father said.
I looked at my mother.
She did not lift her eyes from the porcelain cup.
“This house belongs to a real family now,” Cassidy said.
She said it softly, almost tenderly.
She bounced Madison once on her hip, and Madison laughed and dropped the graham cracker on my floor.
“It belongs to a real family with a real husband and a real child and real holidays. Not to a girl who chose a city 3,000 miles away over the people who raised her. Mom and Dad are going to live in the basement suite. Brendan and Madison and I will be upstairs. You can have the weekend to clean out whatever you brought.”
She paused.
“And then, Wallace, you can go back to Portland, and we will not call. We promise.”
I let her finish.
I looked at the four of them.
My father in the windbreaker.
My mother in last night’s makeup.
My sister in white linen with my niece on her hip.
The boxes that were not mine in my own foyer.
The blue document that was a forgery on top of a forgery on top of 10 years of forgery.
I did not raise my voice.
I did not cry.
I did not argue.
I turned.
I walked back through the foyer.
I opened my own front door.
I paused on the threshold.
I looked back over my shoulder.
“Cassidy.”
She looked up.
“Smile at the porch.”
She blinked.
I lifted my chin once, half an inch, toward the ceiling of the porch behind me.
Toward the small black dome of the Ring lens blinking green.
She did not move.
Her eyes went to the lens.
Her mouth opened slightly.
The toddler made a small noise.
I stepped out.
I closed my own door behind me.
I walked to my car.
I drove away.
The Ring chimed in my pocket once for each of them as they came onto the porch behind me.
It chimed four times.
I drove to a coffee shop in Hyde Park.
I sat in the back booth.
I ordered an oat-milk latte and a piece of bread pudding.
I ate both.
The first call came in at 7:43.
It was my father.
I did not answer.
The second was my mother.
The third was my mother.
The fourth was my father.
By 9:00, I had 11 missed calls.
By 11, I had 17.
By 1:00 p.m., I had 20.
There was no call from Cassidy.
Cassidy never calls when she knows she is losing.
She uses other people’s phones.