Chapter 2: What Vance Didn't Want Her to Say
Mom's first message was calm.
Almost casual.
"Diane, I think there's been some kind of bank error.
My transfer didn't come through.
Can you check on that?"
I didn't reply.
Her second message, twenty minutes later, was less calm.
"Diane.
Call me."
Then Vance.
"Hey, so my account is showing nothing from you this month.
What's going on?"
I set my phone face-down on the kitchen counter and made Leo a grilled cheese sandwich.
By evening, Mom had called eleven times.
When I finally picked up, her voice was shaking.
"You cut us off.
You actually cut us off over a doctor's appointment."
"Over my son's eyesight," I said.
"Yes."
"I was trying to help this family."
"You impersonated me to a medical facility and canceled a procedure for a twelve-year-old child.
That's not help, Mom."
Silence.
Then, quietly, she said something that stopped me cold.
"You don't know everything that's been going on with Vance.
If you did, you wouldn't be doing this."
"What does that mean?"
She didn't answer.
But I heard Vance's voice in the background, low and urgent, telling her to stop talking.
She hung up.
I stood in my kitchen for a long moment.
What was Vance hiding?
And why did Mom suddenly look like she'd said too much?
---
May you like
What Diane uncovered next changed everything she thought she knew about her own family.
Click the link below to read the full story.
