She stood in the garage doorway with a vanilla latte while I changed a belt on the Silverado and asked whether I was still pretending to be useful. Deborah had spent nearly four months in our guest room deciding what my gray hoodie and my old truck meant. She never learned the house carried no mortgage, that her sister’s Denver trip was one I paid for, or that the card she bought coffee with drew on an account I funded. She certainly never learned about the rank, which I kept quiet because at home I only ever wanted to be Juniper’s father.

I went out that afternoon for a pink unicorn cake with sprinkles, ordered for a sixth birthday my daughter had talked about daily for three weeks. When I came back the television was on and the house was wrong. Deborah had wine, Bennett had a controller, and Juniper was outside on the stone patio in thin pajamas with the security bar dropped so she could not get back in. She was scarlet with fever and shaking. When I knelt down she told me her aunt said she had germs. Then Deborah leaned over the balcony with a yellow bucket and emptied it over both of us, and told me to take my burden somewhere else.