Page 104 of Dial F for Finance

The playful heat lingering in my blood cools instantly, replaced by the sharp, familiar pull of responsibility. It’s 9:40 on a Tuesday. My mother doesn’t call at this hour just to chat; she calls because she needs something fixed, or because she’s decided my boundaries are merely suggestions.

Jenna senses the energy shift immediately. She sets the iPad aside, the teasing light in her hazel eyes sharpening. “Take it,” she says softly, pulling the shirt down over her thighs.

I force an easy grin, burying the sudden tension behind my teeth. “I’m sure everything’s fine.” I swipe the green icon and bring the phone to my ear, my voice slipping into its practiced rhythm. “Hola, Mamá. What’s the emergency?”

Helena Cruz in crisis is a jumble of English, Spanish, tears, and half-finished prayers arriving over the phone in no useful order, with my father booming somewhere behind her.

“Mamá, respira,” I say, already on my feet. “Breathe. Is anyone hurt?”

“No, mi amor, but⁠—”

“Is anyone in jail?”

“No.”

My heart, which has apparently been attempting to leave my body through my ribs, returns to its assigned station.

“All right,” I say. “Now tell me what happened.”

What happened, after three more false starts, two invocations of the Virgin Mary, and my father shouting, “It is a classic car, Helena, not a toy!” from somewhere too close to the receiver, is this:

Dustin took Dad’s convertible.

Not just any convertible. The red ’62 SL. The car I fixed up for my father and gifted him a couple of years ago. He loves that car with the deep, unreasonable devotion most men reserve for firstborn sons and baseball teams. Dustin waited until everyone was occupied with Round Hill’s family-day setup, found the keys, and took his girlfriend for a drive.

Eleven blocks.

That’s how far they made it.

Eleven blocks with the top down, Hannah’s scarf in her hair, my forty-one-year-old brother apparently having the time of his life and driving with such reverent caution that a Greenwich patrol officer pulled them over for doing ten in a twenty-five with a line of furious luxury SUVs forming behind them.

The plate check was inevitable after that. Even in Greenwich, a stolen vintage Mercedes creeping down the street like part of a royal procession attracts attention.

“No charges?” I ask.

“No charges,” Mom says, then starts crying harder, because apparently we are now crying about avoided charges too.

The officer knew our family. Of course he knew our family. Everyone in Greenwich either knows my father, owes my father money, has been fed and/or educated by my mother, or has sat behind Dustin at a Mets game and learned more about pitching rotations than they asked for. Dad isn’t pressing charges, because Dad would sooner set fire to his own hair than let Dustin get booked over the Mercedes.

So legally, it’s nothing.

A citation. A tow fee. A lecture Dustin has absolutely not absorbed.

Emotionally, the house is on fire.

Because Hannah’s parents are upset.

Not upset in the normal my daughter was joyriding in a stolen vintage Mercedes way, which would be fair. I would accept that. I would personally contribute to the apology basket.

No. According to my mother, they are “questioning whether the relationship is appropriate.”

I’m livid.

Appropriate. Safe. Supervised—words people use when they want to sound careful instead of condescending.

Hannah and Dustin live at Round Hill under the same supported-independence program, which means there are staff, care plans, family contacts, incident reports, and entirely too many people with clipboards capable of turning an overly cautious joyride into a policy conversation about whether two adults are allowed to keep choosing each other.

“They said that?” I ask, my voice going flat.