At a family dinner, my mom looked at me and said, ;Give me your credit card, your sister needs $200,000

My name is Isabella. I’m thirty‑four years old.

I live alone now in a small, clean apartment in a city a few hours from the New Jersey cul‑de‑sac where I grew up. My building sits over a coffee shop and a dry cleaner, on a tree‑lined street where people walk golden retrievers and carry reusable grocery bags from Trader Joe’s. My walls are painted a soft cream. My sheets are crisp and white from too much time in the Target bedding aisle. Everything in my life is organized. Everything is quiet.

It took me a long time to get used to a silence that wasn’t filled with tension.

The night everything started again, my phone was vibrating against the nightstand, a harsh, angry sound in the soft dark of my bedroom. I rolled over and squinted at the red digits on my alarm clock.