Linda sighed.
“Are you still paying their mortgage?”
I looked at the legal pad.
“No.”
The answer surprised both of us.
“What happened?”
“I canceled it tonight.”
There was a long pause.
Then Linda said, “Good.”
Not dramatic.
Not triumphant.
Just good.
I wanted to argue with her.
Instead I began crying.
It came suddenly.
Quietly.
I sat at my kitchen table with the phone pressed to my ear and cried like someone had finally given me permission.
Linda did not tell me I was brave.
She did not call Michael ungrateful.
She waited.
When I could speak again, I said, “What if they lose the house?”
“Can they afford it without you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Barbara.”
“I really don’t.”
“You’ve been paying their mortgage for three years and you don’t know their finances?”
“No.”
That sounded absurd once spoken aloud.
Linda asked, “Have they ever shown you?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know whether you were saving them or subsidizing them.”
I stared at my tea.
It had gone cold.
That distinction kept me awake until almost two.
—
The next morning I did something I should have done three years earlier.
I looked at my own finances.
Not casually.
Not just balances.
Everything.
