Her voice carried the weight before her words did.
“Ivy… can I come over? Please.”
“We’re losing the house.”
She explained: Rick’s construction business was collapsing, debts piling up, the mortgage company closing in. They’d already borrowed from his parents, but it wasn’t enough.
“How much?” I asked, because I’d always been the one to fix things.
“Twenty-five thousand,” she whispered, as if saying it too loud might shatter the number.
Nearly half my savings.
But she was my sister — the girl who crawled into my bed during storms, the woman who stood beside me at my wedding and held me through my divorce. So I said yes.
Rick came later to sign a simple loan agreement. His voice was heavy with shame. “You’re saving us. I won’t forget this.”
I believed him. Back then, I still believed words carried weight.
But silence followed.
Six months. Eight. Ten. No mention of repayment. Instead, I saw weekend trips, new clothes, dinners out. Rick bought a truck worth more than their mortgage. Lisa posted photos from wine country, then Disney, captioned with “making memories.”
Meanwhile, I was scraping by, rebuilding a business from my apartment, every dollar carefully budgeted because my safety net had a hole ripped through it.
At first, I stayed quiet — out of patience, then out of fear of fracturing the family.
When a year passed, I finally asked at Sunday dinner:
“So… how are things financially?”
Lisa smiled quickly. “So much better. Rick even got a bonus.”
That night, something inside me broke. They weren’t forgetting. They were choosing not to pay me back.
Months later, after endless excuses, I confronted Rick on their patio after Thanksgiving.
“It’s been two years. What’s the repayment plan?”
He hesitated too long, then muttered, “Next year. Maybe monthly payments.”
I’d had enough.Continue reading…
