Mom smoothed the crumpled pages against the table with shaking hands. “Seventy-four thousand dollars,” she whispered, as if the number belonged to someone else. Then she lifted her chin. “You are exaggerating, Rachel. I never asked for any of it.” Ethan quietly set a thin folder beside her plate. “Page three, Linda,” he said. “Your own signatures, every single month.”

Mom opened the folder, and her face crumpled. Inside were the receipts, each signed in her handwriting, along with a text she had sent me last spring: “Don’t tell Megan. She would be jealous.” Megan read it over her shoulder and went rigid. “Mom,” she said slowly, “you told me you were paying for my doctor visits yourself.” Mom said nothing, and the garden room felt very small.