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“I graduated four years ago.”

“Yes, but you were always very responsible.”

“I am responsible,” I said, trying very hard not to raise my voice. “That’s why I’m paying the loans off every month.”

“That’s what I mean. If you’re paying them, then surely you’re doing well enough.”

I stared at the spreadsheet open on my second monitor. I had tracked every expense for the month, including the six dollars and forty-two cents I’d spent on cold medicine and regretted for four days.

“Paying them back is why I don’t have any extra money,” I said. “The minimum payment eats almost everything left after rent, utilities, groceries, insurance, and business expenses.”

There was another pause.

My parents weren’t monstrous. They were indifferent. Which was worse somehow. I spent most of my childhood feeling like an administrative error they were forced to manage. As an only child, I didn’t grow up with parents so much as I grew up with two emotionally distant landlords who happened to share my last name. They provided a clean house, a safe neighborhood, and enough résumé-building extracurriculars to make my upbringing look like a pristine college admissions campaign from the outside.

Because to them, the outside was all that mattered.

They had never been emotionally available when I was a child, treating my basic needs as minor inconveniences. And as an adult, my failure to secure a high-status, high-earning career along with a wealthy husband had turned from an inconvenience into an embarrassment. They didn’t care that I was struggling to find my footing; they cared what their friends at the country club would think if they found out their daughter wasn’t thriving on paper. To my parents, my lack of conventional success was a direct threat to their reputation.

“What about grants?” my mother asked.

“I didn’t qualify for much under FAFSA because you and Dad make too much.”

“What does what we make have to do with your loans?”

I curled my toes, closed my eyes, and counted to ten. “We’ve had this conversation dozens of times.”

“Maybe you explained it in a confusing way, Sloane.”

“The government calculated your expected contribution based on your income,” I said. “Because I was legally considered dependent for most of college, what you made affected what assistance I qualified for.”

“Well, we paid for plenty of things.”

“You paid for my first semester’s books.”

“And your dorm bedding,” she added.

I pressed my lips together until the urge to say something damaging passed.

My father came onto the line without warning. “Sweetheart, we’re not trying to make you feel bad.”

This was one of his favorite contributions to all conversations in which my mother was actively making me feel bad. “I know.”

“We’re proud of you,” he said.

“Okay.”

“You graduated with honors.”

“I did.”

“And graphic design is a real career now. Everything is digital.”

I swallowed an answer that would have required a separate argument. “Yes, Dad.”

“We only want you to make smart choices.”

“I know.”