My neighbor, Lila, asked me to “crash” her dinner—no questions, just arrive at seven and act surprised. Odd, but she’d been distant lately, so I went. Her husband welcomed me with a grin too tight to trust. The table gleamed, yet Lila’s smile trembled like glass. When she “forgot the merlot,” I followed her to the kitchen.
There, she showed me a hidden ledger of every coin she spent, a cracked phone she wasn’t allowed to fix, and a tiny camera blinking above the pantry door. “I need a witness,” she whispered. Back at the table, I toasted to “freedom and honest homes.” His face curdled. Lila handed me the ledger; I dialed a friend on speaker who works with a shelter. Neighbors drifted in, called by a group text she’d scheduled. The dinner collapsed, but her cage did, too. Crashing became opening—her life, at last.
