They did not leave quietly, but they did not leave loudly either, which somehow made it worse. For the first week, Corinne spoke to me only through the wall. The second week, she began leaving printed spreadsheets on the kitchen counter, carefully listing everything she and Desmond had contributed during the four years they had lived with me. Groceries. A ceiling fan. Small household expenses. The total came to nine hundred and forty dollars. Against the forty-one thousand I had spent, the numbers looked almost absurd, but she had formatted every column as though she were presenting evidence in court. I said nothing. I simply moved the papers aside whenever I needed the counter.

By the nineteenth day, I had stopped wondering whether they would apologize. Instead, I began wondering what had made them so desperate for that card in the first place. Then, while searching through paperwork they had left behind, I found something I was never supposed to see. Desmond had been out of work since the previous September—and Corinne had never known. That was when I realized the money had been paying for a secret far bigger than mine.