That night, Mom moved my bed back into my room herself. She carried my desk. She pulled the Content Studio sign off the wall and dropped it in the recycling.

Ethan tore the chore list off the fridge and ripped it into tiny pieces. Mom let him.

When we were done, I went to the box room and pulled out the bundle from under my bed. “Mom,” I said. “I found something.”

I unrolled Grandma's quilt across my bed.

Mom put her hand over her mouth. She sat down on the edge of the bed and touched the little stitches, one by one, very gently.

“You saved it,” she whispered.

“It was in a trash bag at the curb.”

She pulled me into a hug and held on for a long time. Her shoulders were shaking. It was the first time I'd seen my mom cry since Grandma's funeral.

Down the hall, behind Dad's closed bedroom door, we could hear Brittany shouting.

“You have debts? How much debt, Steve? You told me you were a successful sales manager!”

At eleven o'clock, the front door slammed. A car pulled out of the driveway.

Brittany had gone to her mother's motel. She'd taken Coco, but not her six suitcases.