Chapter 4: What Margaret Had Always Known
The smaller item tucked behind the letter was a bank statement.
Not mine.
Not my mother's.
Christina's name was printed at the top.
The account number was partially obscured, but the transactions were not.
I recognized the dates immediately.
The withdrawals.
The amounts.
My mother had been ill for nearly two years.
During that time, I had set up an informal family fund — a shared account that several relatives had contributed to, meant to help cover costs that insurance wouldn't touch.
Transportation.
Home nursing visits for three months when she couldn't be left alone.
Medication that had to be ordered privately.
The fund had started with just over nine thousand dollars.
It had run out in four months.
I had assumed the costs were simply higher than expected.
I had never questioned it.
I had been too exhausted and too grief-stricken to audit a spreadsheet.
The bank statement in my mother's letter told a different story.
Four separate transfers.
Each one just under two thousand dollars.
Each one moved to an external account in Christina's name.
Nearly eight thousand dollars.
Gone before my mother had even entered her final stage of treatment.
"She found out," I said, more to myself than to anyone else.
Paul picked up the statement.
His face went very still.
"When did she find this?" he asked.
"The letter says six weeks before she passed." My voice was steady in a way that surprised me.
"She says she confronted Christina.
She says Christina told her it was a loan.
That she'd pay it back before anyone noticed."
"A loan." Paul set the paper down.
"She never paid it back."
Christina had not moved.
She was sitting very straight, both hands flat on the table, looking at the center of the tablecloth.
"Christina." My voice came out quiet.
Not angry.
Just clear.
"Look at me."
She didn't.
"Christina."
She looked up.
Her face had lost all its color.
"You took money from a fund meant to keep my mother alive."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then tell me what it was like."
"I had a situation.
A financial situation.
I needed a bridge, just for a few weeks.
I always intended to—"
"You took eight thousand dollars from a sick woman's care fund."
"I paid some of it back." Her voice dropped.
"I put three thousand back in October."
"She was gone by October."
The words landed on the table like something heavy.
Christina's eyes filled.
I didn't know if it was guilt or the sudden realization that twelve people were watching her.
"I was going to tell you," she said.
"After things settled.
After the estate was sorted."
"You were going to tell me at dinner tonight," Paul said.
"By handing my wife a four-hundred-dollar bill."
She said nothing.
An aunt at the far end of the table — my mother's younger sister, Ruth — pushed her chair back slowly.
She picked up her purse.
She looked at Christina for a long moment without speaking.
Then she looked at me.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Ruth said.
"I'm so sorry I didn't know."
She walked out.
Two cousins followed without a word.
Christina watched them go.
Then she turned back to me, and for the first time all evening, her voice lost its edge entirely.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I know that doesn't fix it."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
I folded the bank statement carefully and placed it back inside the envelope.
"But I'm not the one you need to worry about right now."
She frowned slightly.
"What do you mean?"
I looked at Paul.
He was already looking at me, and I could see from his expression that he had arrived at the same thought at exactly the same moment.
"My mother didn't just keep a copy of that statement," I said slowly.
"She gave it to Daniel to hold.
She made sure it would reach me." I paused.
"She was very specific about that."
"So?"
"So my mother was a careful woman.
She didn't do anything without a reason." I picked up the envelope again.
"And she didn't send just one copy."
Christina's face changed.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying I think we need to look at what else was in that envelope."
May you like
I reached in and felt along the bottom.
My fingers touched a second folded piece of paper I hadn't noticed before.
