The kettle whistles, and she turns to pour the water, giving me a moment to compose myself. But I don't have an answer. Not one I can give her.
She sets a mug in front of me and takes the seat across the table. The steam rises between us like a barrier.
"How are you doing with everything?" she asks, her tone shifting. "The bills, I mean. I know things were tight before you left."
I tense. "What do you mean?"
"Jade, I'm not stupid. You were drowning. The hospital bills from my surgery alone were enough to bury you."
"I told you not to worry about that. I was handling it."
"Handling it how?" Her voice rises. "You were working three jobs and still barely making rent."
Silence. The kitchen feels too small.
“Aren’t you worried about it, Jade?"
I could lie. I should lie. But I'm so tired of lying.
"It's gone."
She blinks. "Gone? That was almost four hundred thousand dollars."
"Someone paid it off."
"Who?"
I stare at the table. "Phoenix."
The name lands like a bomb. I watch her face cycle through confusion to horror.
"Phoenix," she repeats. "The man you've been dating for a few weeks paid off four hundred thousand dollars."
"It was before we were dating. He sent an anonymous check. I didn't know who it was until I tracked him down."
"And you cashed it?"
"I was desperate, Mom! I was about to lose everything!"
She stands abruptly, pacing. "So some stranger sends you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you cash it, and then you start dating him?"
"It wasn't like that?—"
"What's his last name?"
My stomach drops.
"Crawford."
She stops moving. Goes completely still.
"Crawford," she whispers. "As in Nicholas Crawford."
"His son. Phoenix is his son."
For a long moment, she doesn't speak. Then the storm breaks.
"A Crawford paid off your debts. A Crawford." Her voice shakes. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
