Chapter 2 - THE MONEY MY SISTER THOUGHT I WAS RECEIVING
“What money?”
I heard myself ask the question again, even though Natalie was standing less than three feet away, holding her phone directly in front of my face.
On the screen was a bank transaction.
$1,000.
The recipient's name was Samantha Bennett.
Our mother.
The description underneath made my stomach tighten.
Sydney—monthly support.
I looked at the date.
September 5.
Then I scrolled.
August 5.
July 5.
June 5.
The payments went back farther than I expected.
“How long?” I whispered.
Natalie swallowed.
“Twenty-eight months.”
For a moment, the sounds of our family reunion seemed to disappear.
Thirty-seven relatives stood around the picnic shelter, watching us.
My father, Richard, had one hand resting against the folding table.
Mom still held the microphone, though she no longer seemed interested in using it.
I did the arithmetic in my head.
Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
My sister had been sending our mother $1,000 every month because she believed I needed financial assistance.
Meanwhile, I'd been paying Mom's $2,400 monthly rent.
My mother had been collecting money from both of us.
And somehow, she'd convinced each daughter that the other one was the problem.
“Natalie,” I said carefully, “I've never received a dollar of that money.”
My sister looked at Mom.
“Tell me she's joking.”
Mom straightened her shoulders.
“This is not an appropriate conversation for a family gathering.”
“Neither was calling your daughter useless into a microphone,” Dad replied.
His voice was so quiet that everyone heard it.
Aunt Linda, who had been standing near the dessert table, slowly lowered her paper plate.
Mom glanced around at the relatives.
“Richard, please. You're embarrassing me.”
Dad looked at me.
Then at Natalie.
“No,” he said. “I think we've embarrassed our daughters long enough.”
It was the first time in my adult life that I'd heard my father openly challenge my mother in front of other people.
I wanted to feel relieved.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Because twenty-eight thousand dollars wasn't merely another lie.
It meant Natalie and I had spent more than two years resenting each other over something neither of us had done.
“Why did you start sending money?” I asked her.
Natalie rubbed her forehead.
“Mom called me after Christmas two years ago. She said you'd been crying because you were behind on your bills.”
I almost laughed.
That Christmas, I'd received my second promotion.
I'd even bought Mom a cashmere sweater I'd saved three months to afford.
“She told me you were too proud to ask me yourself,” Natalie continued. “She said you were struggling with credit cards, and that you didn't want Dad finding out.”
Mom interrupted.
“You were struggling emotionally, Sydney. You might not remember everything you told me.”
I stared at her.
There was something particularly cruel about watching someone rewrite your own life while you were standing directly in front of them.
“I remember my life perfectly well.”
“You've always been sensitive.”
“And you've always counted on that.”
A silence settled between us.
Natalie turned her phone toward Mom.
“Where did my money go?”
Mom tightened her grip around the microphone.
“Your sister benefited from it in ways she doesn't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I paid for things.”
“What things?”
Mom didn't answer.
Natalie's face changed.
Not into anger.
Into recognition.
She had spent years defending our mother because she believed being the favorite meant understanding her better.
Now she was realizing that being favored had simply made her easier to use.
“I took money out of our vacation savings,” Natalie said quietly. “Mark and I postponed our anniversary trip because I thought Sydney was in trouble.”
I turned toward her.
“You and Mark?”
She nodded.
My brother-in-law had always been kind to me.
He was a high school principal who remembered birthdays and asked real questions about my work.
Last spring, he'd apologized for missing my birthday dinner because he was working extra summer-program hours.
Now I wondered whether he'd been working those hours because of me.
Or because of a lie about me.
“I thought I was protecting you,” Natalie whispered.
“I know.”
“No. You don't. I was angry with you.”
Her eyes filled.
“I thought you were letting everyone carry you.”
I looked at my mother.
“That's exactly what she wanted.”
Mom finally put down the microphone.
“You're making me sound like a criminal.”
Dad answered before I could.
“Then tell us where the money went.”
She looked at him with a wounded expression.
“After everything I've done for this family?”
Aunt Linda stepped closer.
“Samantha, I think it's time you answered the question.”
Mom had always disliked Aunt Linda.
My father's older sister was seventy-four, retired from the Chicago Public Library, and possessed an unfortunate habit of remembering conversations exactly.
She wasn't easily impressed by money, appearances, or dramatic speeches.
And she had never laughed when Mom made jokes about me.
Mom pointed toward the picnic tables.
“Linda, this doesn't concern you.”
Aunt Linda folded her arms.
“It concerns me if you're lying to my brother.”
Something passed across Mom's face.
Not panic.
Calculation.
I recognized it because I'd seen that expression whenever she wanted me to feel guilty about asking for my money back.
“Fine,” she said. “You all want honesty?”
She turned to Natalie.
“Yes, you sent me money. And yes, I used some of it for business expenses. But I did that because I was trying to create something for this family.”
“By telling me Sydney needed groceries?” Natalie demanded.
Mom hesitated.
Then she said something I hadn't expected.
“You wouldn't have helped otherwise.”
Natalie stepped backward.
It was one of those moments when the truth didn't need to be dramatic.
It simply needed to be spoken.
Our mother knew exactly what she'd done.
She had invented an emergency because she knew her daughters would respond to one.
Dad reached for his car keys.
“We're going to the apartment.”
Mom's head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“The Lincoln Park apartment. I want to see what we've been paying for.”
“We?”
He looked at me.
“My daughter paid for it. That makes it my concern.”
Mom moved in front of him.
“You cannot just walk into my private office.”
“Then show me the lease.”
“I don't have it with me.”
“I wasn't asking for it here.”
Natalie looked at me.
“Do you have the address?”
I nodded.
I'd been paying the property management company for nearly three years.
I knew the building, the unit number, and every late-payment warning Mom had ever asked me to resolve.
Mom suddenly reached for her purse.
“Richard, I need to explain something first.”
Dad stopped.
“Then explain.”
She glanced toward the relatives.
“Not here.”
He looked around at the picnic shelter, at the abandoned potato salad, at the relatives who had watched his daughter being humiliated.
“You didn't mind an audience ten minutes ago.”
Mom's eyes watered.
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her.
Then I remembered the thirty-four payments.
The missed graduate-school deadline.
The weekends I'd worked while she told people I lacked ambition.
And the way she'd smiled when she called me useless.
I took my phone from the table.
“I'm going to the apartment,” I said. “You can come or not.”
Aunt Linda caught my wrist gently.
“Sydney, there's something you should know.”
Her voice had changed.
I turned toward her.
She looked at Mom before speaking.
“Last winter, Samantha asked me to recommend an interior designer.”
Mom went completely still.
“For your office?” Dad asked.
Linda shook her head.
“No, Richard.”
She took a folded photograph from the front pocket of her purse.
“I stopped by the building because I thought I was helping with a family surprise.”
She placed the photograph on the table.
It showed an elegant living room with cream-colored furniture, a marble fireplace, and fresh flowers on a glass coffee table.
But the room itself wasn't what caught my attention.
On the mantel was a framed photograph of my father and mother on their wedding day.
And beside it stood a silver picture frame holding a photograph of a man I'd never seen before.
His arm was around my mother's waist.
Natalie leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
Aunt Linda looked at my father.
Then she answered.
“That's what I've been trying to ask Samantha since February.”
Mom grabbed the photograph.
But Dad caught her wrist before she could hide it.
He stared at the unfamiliar man.
May you like
And with a voice that sounded nothing like his own, he said:
“Samantha, why is my brother standing in your apartment?”
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