Rosalind did not open the folder. She glanced at it the way you’d glance at something distasteful and lifted her chin. “I don’t need to read bank statements, Eleanor. Family supports family. Bethany tells me you’ve decided to punish her over a misunderstanding, and frankly, at your age, holding onto money you can’t take with you seems rather bitter.” I let her finish. Then I opened the folder myself and turned it toward her, page by page. Thirty-six transfers of one thousand four hundred sixty-six dollars. Thirty-six months. Fifty-two thousand eight hundred dollars, every dollar of it sent because my daughter told me she was about to lose her home. “This is the money that bought your suitcase, Rosalind. Your lei. Your seat on that plane. Did Bethany tell you where it came from?”

For the first time, her composure flickered. “She said… they’d saved for it.” “They saved nothing,” I said. “They collected it from me, and I’ve since learned, from my son, who was paying their car note, and I suspect from others too. You were told you were the only one who ever made them proud. I was told they were facing foreclosure. Trevor’s mother gets Fiji. Trevor’s mother-in-law gets a crying phone call once a month. Sit with that for a moment before you tell me what I owe my daughter.” Rosalind’s rigid expression had gone very still, the exact stillness I’d felt in myself the morning I saw that photograph.