In the hallway, my father explained it in about ninety seconds. Priya’s questions over those three months had not been curiosity. They had been screening. My dad, who negotiates for a living and reads people for a living, had seen the pattern in the messages I forwarded him without thinking, the steady drift toward money, the way every friendly exchange circled back to what we had.
So he ran a test. He dressed down, borrowed my uncle’s dying minivan, packed my things in garbage bags, and walked in looking like a family with nothing. Not to embarrass me. To find out who my roommate was when she thought there was nothing to gain.
