I initially assumed my son’s girlfriend was teasing when she announced that he owed her money for every meal. Then Ethan retrieved a folded page from a kitchen drawer, and she cried, “Don’t you dare show her that!” Her expression transformed. What was written there made her desperate to stop him from showing me.
Ethan had shared an apartment with Vanessa for two months before asking me to visit. I arrived carrying the apple pie he’d loved since childhood.
Vanessa smiled as though that were perfectly normal.
