I returned unannounced from 20 years of hard labor to find my sister sleeping on a welcome mat in rags. My son, hosting a lavish party with my money, wiped his muddy boots on her back and laughed : “That’s our crazy maid.” He told his guests I was senile and dragged me upstairs. He didn’t notice I wasn’t fighting back—I was counting the steps to his destruction.

The cab driver, a boy barely old enough to shave with tired circles under his eyes, squinted at me through the rearview mirror. The leather of the seat was cracked, smelling of stale pine air freshener and old cigarettes.

“Sure this is the place, Grandma?” he asked, slowing the car as the tall, wrought-iron gates of the estate loomed out of the twilight mist. “It looks like… well, it looks like money. You sure they’re expectin’ you?”