I know.

I put the phone in my pocket.

Then I went upstairs to see my sister.

The door to the master bedroom was half open.

My bedroom. My grandfather’s bedroom before that. The room he died in.

Someone had painted it. Pale gray. The heavy oak furniture he’d made himself was gone. In its place was a white upholstered bed, a white dresser, a white velvet chair. Everything soft and new and expensive.

Chloe lay on top of the covers in leggings and a gray sweatshirt. Thirty-four. Blond hair pulled into a messy knot. No makeup.

She looked terrible.

Her face was pale and puffy. There were dark circles under her eyes. A heating pad lay across her lower stomach. A small orange pill bottle sat on the nightstand next to a glass of water and a box of tissues.

When she saw me in the doorway, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me.

I had expected her to be smug. I had expected her to say something about the master bedroom. About being a good sister.

She didn’t.

She started to cry.

Not loudly. Quietly. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere a long way down, that doesn’t have the energy to make noise anymore.

-Chloe.

-I’m sorry.

-For what?

-For the room. For all of it. I told Mom it was wrong to move your stuff. She said you’d agreed. She said you said it was fine.

-I didn’t agree to anything.

-I know that now. I knew it when I saw your face yesterday.

I stood in the doorway and didn’t move.

I didn’t trust her. I couldn’t afford to. But I also knew what lying looks like from twelve feet away. I’d interviewed a lot of people in nine years. This wasn’t lying.

-What happened to you?

She wiped her face with her sleeve.

-We did a transfer. IVF. Our third one. Last Thursday. They told me Saturday it didn’t take.

I didn’t say anything.

-We’ve been trying for four years, Nat. Four years. Three retrievals. Three transfers. Every one of them failed. The doctor says there might not be a fourth.

-I’m sorry.

-Do you know what each one costs?

-No.

-Fifteen thousand. Give or take. Insurance covers nothing.

Fifteen thousand. Three transfers.

Forty-five thousand.

I came into the room slowly and sat on the white velvet chair.

-Chloe. Who paid for the IVF?

She looked at me, surprised.

-Mom. Mom paid. She said it was from you.

-From me.

-She said you’d been saving your deployment money and you wanted to help. She said you didn’t want to make a big deal about it. She said you made her promise not to tell me until it worked, so I wouldn’t feel like I owed you.

She started crying again.

-I was going to thank you. When it worked. I had a card. I was going to thank you.

I sat very still.

-Chloe. I never gave Mom any money.

She stared at me.

-What?

-I didn’t know you were doing IVF. I didn’t know anything about it. Nobody told me. Mom forged a power of attorney while I was in Iraq and took forty-five thousand dollars out of my accounts.

Her face went white.

-No.

-I have the bank records.

-No. She wouldn’t.

-She did.

-Oh my God.

She put both hands over her mouth. Her shoulders started to shake.

I waited.

When she could talk again, her voice was a whisper.

-I didn’t know. I swear to God, Nat. I swear on Grandpa. I thought it was a gift. I thought you were finally. I thought we were finally okay.

-I believe you.

I said it before I’d decided to. It came out anyway.

-Chloe, I need to ask you some things. They’re going to be hard. I need true answers.

She nodded.

-Do you know anything about a loan on this house?

She looked confused.

-What loan?

-A bridge loan. Two hundred ten thousand dollars. Cumberland Bridge Capital. Signed in May.

-No. What? No. The house is Grandpa’s. It’s paid off. Mom said.

-What did Mom say?

-She said Grandpa left the house in a family trust. She said it was really supposed to go to Dad, but there was a legal thing, and it was in your name temporarily. She said you agreed that since you were never here, we should live in it. She said you were going to sign it over to me properly when you got back. To make it official.

-Today.

-Today. At four. She said it was all settled.

-Did you ever see any loan papers?

-No.

-Did Vance?

Chloe hesitated.

That hesitation went through me like cold water.

-Chloe.

-I don’t know. Maybe. He handles our money. He has a business. Real estate. He flips houses. Or he was going to. It hasn’t been going well.