On a typical Tuesday evening, I walked into my in-laws’ house to find my children with completely empty plates, while their nieces and nephews were eating their third helping of lasagna from a “real” dinner set. Eighteen minutes later, I quietly decided I’d had enough of being their personal ATM, and that something in this family was about to go wrong in a way no one expected.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have protected you and the children years ago. I should have seen what they were doing.”

“Now you see it,” I said. “That’s what counts.”

We sat for a long time holding hands at the kitchen table, silently realizing that we were finally on the same page. It was the first moment of peace I’d felt since walking into the dining room and seeing my children with empty plates.

The next three months unfolded exactly as my lawyer and accountant predicted.

Adison and Roger couldn’t refinance the mortgage without my income and creditworthiness. Their bank account couldn’t cover the monthly payments. The foreclosure process began as planned—clinically and impersonally, purely as a business matter.

I learned about it from Wyatt, who was still receiving updates from his mother, though he no longer answered her daily calls. They found a small, two-bedroom apartment across town, above a laundromat, in a neighborhood they’d once described as “not their type.” They had to sell most of their furniture to cover moving costs and their first rent.

Roger’s truck was impounded in the seventh week. I heard he tried to hide it at a friend’s place, but the collection agency had a tracking system. Now he was taking the bus to his part-time job at a hardware store, which he apparently complained bitterly about to anyone who would listen.

Payton found a roommate online—a college student looking for a cheap apartment. She took a second job, waitressing three nights a week, in addition to her job at the boutique. Her Instagram account, which I stopped following but occasionally glanced at out of morbid curiosity, had gone from carefully curated lifestyle photos to nothing.

I waited for the satisfaction, the vengeful pleasure I imagined I’d feel watching their comfortable lifestyle crumble. But it never came. I felt nothing. No satisfaction, no guilt, no regret—only a vast void where my relationship with Wyatt’s family had once existed.

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