Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN MY MOTHER ERASED
“My mother has a sister I've never met, and someone has been sending her money while telling me my sister can't afford rent?”
I didn't recognize my own voice.
Dad sat across from me, staring at the canceled check.
“Elaine isn't someone your mother likes to discuss.”
“Apparently.”
Micah looked between us.
“Do you know what happened?”
Dad rubbed the back of his neck.
“Not everything.”
That was becoming a familiar answer.
He explained that Elaine was Marianne's older sister by six years.
When I was little, Elaine occasionally visited.
I remembered none of it.
According to Dad, the sisters had a falling-out when I was around four.
Afterward, Mom refused to speak about her.
Whenever Dad asked, she said Elaine was unreliable and better left in the past.
“And you accepted that?” I asked.
“I was raising two children and working sixty hours a week. Your mother said Elaine had hurt her. I believed her.”
I looked at the check.
“Why send her money now?”
Dad shook his head.
“I don't know.”
The next morning, I drove to the address on the back.
It wasn't a mysterious mansion or some abandoned property.
It was a small brick apartment building beside a public library.
There were flowerpots on the steps.
A bicycle leaned against the railing.
An older woman in a blue cardigan was watering herbs on the second-floor balcony.
I checked the apartment number.
Then I rang the bell.
A few minutes later, the woman opened the door.
She had silver hair, careful eyes, and my mother's mouth.
“Can I help you?”
“My name is Vera Holt.”
Her hand tightened around the doorframe.
For a moment, she looked almost frightened.
Then her eyes filled.
“Oh,” she whispered.
I stood there awkwardly.
“Are you Elaine?”
She nodded.
“I wondered whether you'd come someday.”
That sentence made my stomach turn.
She invited me inside.
The apartment was modest but comfortable.
Books filled the shelves.
A sewing machine sat beside the window.
On the mantel stood several framed photographs.
One was of a little girl in a red coat.
Me.
At about four years old.
I stepped toward it.
“Where did you get that?”
Elaine smiled sadly.
“I took it.”
I picked up the frame.
The little girl was holding a small yellow umbrella.
An older woman stood beside her.
Elaine.
I didn't remember the day.
But I recognized the umbrella.
I'd carried it everywhere as a child.
“Why haven't we seen each other?”
Elaine sat down slowly.
“Your mother believed I interfered too much.”
“With what?”
“Your childhood, mostly.”
I sat opposite her.
She studied my face before continuing.
“Marianne was always worried something terrible would happen if she wasn't in control. She wanted to know where everyone was, what they were doing, and whether they needed her.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Elaine's expression softened.
“She wasn't always like that.”
I didn't want another excuse.
But I did want to understand.
Elaine told me about their childhood.
Their father lost his job when Marianne was eleven.
Their mother became seriously ill.
Elaine, already seventeen, took on much of the household responsibility.
Marianne grew up watching adults fight over bills and medical expenses.
She'd become terrified of financial insecurity.
When she had children, she tried to manage every possible risk.
“And when you were little,” Elaine said, “she expected you to be responsible much sooner than you should have been.”
I thought about my first job at fifteen.
How proud Mom had been when I started buying my own school supplies.
How often she'd praised me for never needing anything.
“Why did you leave?”
Elaine looked toward the photograph.
“Because I told her you shouldn't have to take care of everybody.”
I swallowed.
“She didn't like that?”
“No.”
Elaine explained that one afternoon, she'd found me crying because Mom had asked me to cancel a school trip.
Dalia was sick, and Mom needed help.
I was only twelve.
Elaine had offered to babysit so I could go.
Mom refused.
They argued.
Then Elaine told Mom that a child shouldn't have to earn love by being useful.
“She told me to leave,” Elaine said. “Afterward, she stopped answering my calls.”
I looked down.
That was the sentence I'd needed someone to say all my life.
A child shouldn't have to earn love by being useful.
Then I remembered the payments.
“Why is Mom sending you money?”
Elaine frowned.
“She isn't.”
I placed the check on the table.
Elaine studied it.
Her face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Dad found it.”
Elaine shook her head.
“Vera, I haven't received money from Marianne in years.”
“But the account—”
“This check wasn't deposited by me.”
She turned it over.
The endorsement was a name written in hurried cursive.
Elaine Holt.
But she shook her head.
“That's not my signature.”
My stomach sank.
Another unauthorized signature.
Another arrangement made behind closed doors.
“Do you know who might have cashed it?”
Elaine hesitated.
“I don't want to accuse anybody.”
“Please.”
She looked at me with painful kindness.
“Your mother came here last winter.”
I sat very still.
“She asked me for a loan.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No. I couldn't afford it.”
“What did she need it for?”
“She said someone was demanding money from Dalia.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
“Who?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
Elaine reached into a drawer and pulled out a Christmas card.
It was from Mom.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Inside, she'd written:
Please forgive the visit. I was desperate. I need to make this right before Vera discovers what happened.
I reread the sentence.
“What happened?”
Elaine shook her head.
“She wouldn't tell me.”
I drove home with the card in my purse.
For the first time, I considered that the money might not simply be disappearing into Dalia's lifestyle.
Something else was happening.
And Mom had been trying to hide it for months.
When I got home, Dad was waiting.
He'd spoken with the bank.
The recurring transfers had gone into a second account controlled by Mom.
The label Holt Family Support was simply a nickname she'd given it.
But there was more.
Dad placed a transaction list on the table.
He'd obtained it with Mom's permission after a difficult conversation.
Most of the money had gone toward credit card payments.
One large transaction went to a collections agency.
I recognized the date.
Three weeks before my wedding.
The same week Dalia demanded a new car.
The same week I'd refused.
Dad pointed to the amount.
$12,600.
“Your mother says she paid this because Dalia was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
Dad looked exhausted.
“She won't tell me.”
Then Micah, who'd been reading the transaction description, looked up.
“Vera, is this the name of the consulting company you used to work for?”
I leaned closer.
It was.
Not the exact same company.
But an affiliated firm I'd contracted with four years earlier.
The company where I'd first started earning enough to support myself.
Beside the payment was a reference number.
And when I searched it in my old business records, I found a matching invoice.
It was attached to a client project I'd completed years ago.
The invoice had been paid.
In full.
Yet somebody had used its number to demand $12,600 from my family.
May you like
And on the printed statement, beside the payment, my mother had written:
Dalia copied Vera's signature. They found out.
