My name is Dorothy Anne Thompson. I was born in 1954 in Richmond, Virginia, to parents who taught me that a home wasn’t just wood and brick—it was dignity. I married William in 1973. We were young, broke, and hungry. He was a journeyman electrician; I was a school cafeteria server.

In 1978, we bought this three-bedroom ranch in Durham, North Carolina for $48,000. We scraped together every penny for the down payment. William worked days as a union electrician and nights running his own small contracting business. He wired every inch of this house himself.

“This house is our foundation,” he used to say, wiping grease from his hands. “Everything we build, we build on this. Nobody takes this from us.”

We paid off the mortgage in twenty years. We raised three children here: Trevor, Janelle, and Ronald. We taught them the value of a dollar. But Trevor… Trevor was always different. He wanted the shortcut. The easy win. He resented us for making him work for his first car. He dropped out of college because he thought he was too smart for it.

He became an insurance salesman, making good money but spending better. He married Kesha, and together they lived a life of leased luxury cars and maxed-out credit cards. They were drowning in debt, but to the outside world, they were thriving.