Across from me, my son’s wife, Ariel, wore lipstick the color of new pennies and a smile calibrated to the millimeter. Cole—my Cole—rolled his shoulders the way a teenager does when he is hoping height can make a better argument than humility.

The word came like thrown glass.

“Freeloader.”

It didn’t shatter me. It marked the floor where the line would be drawn.

“You have twenty‑four hours to leave my house,” I said, and the second hand finally moved.

We bought the oak table at a church rummage sale that smelled like hot dust and lemonade. Victor ducked his head under the apron, ran his hand along the underside, and grinned. “Quarter‑sawn,” he said, as if we’d been handed a secret. Forty dollars later, we ratchet‑strapped it into the bed of a borrowed pickup. Victor rode his palm flat on the top the whole way home, as if the Tacoma wind might try to steal it back.