Nobody spoke.
My eyes went to Melissa.
Her designer purse was downstairs on Mom’s dining table.
The same purse she had spent ten minutes bragging about the day before.
And inside Mom’s birthday card was twenty dollars.
“You owe Mom $137,500?”
“No.”
I actually laughed.
“No?”
“That’s not what this is.”
“There are repayment dates beside every single amount.”
“Mom never expected me to repay everything.”
“How convenient.”
“It’s true.”
I turned toward Mom.
“Is she telling the truth?”
Mom sat beside me.
“Yes.”
That answer stopped me cold.
“What?”
“I never really expected Melissa to pay all of it back.”
I stared at the documents.
“Then why write everything down?”
Mom took the notebook from my hands.
“Because I needed to remember how much she had already received.”
“For what?”
She looked at me.
“For you.”
I couldn’t speak.
Mom turned several pages.
There was my name.
And beneath it?
Almost nothing.
“I don’t understand.”
Mom sighed.
“Melissa needed help sooner than you did. You didn’t. But that doesn’t mean one daughter should eventually receive more than the other.”
Melissa slowly sat beside the window.
Mom continued.
“Some of these began as loans. Melissa always told me she would pay me back once they were doing better.”
“But you never made her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Mom looked genuinely confused by my question.
“Because eventually I didn’t need her to.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is to me.”
She closed the folder.
“I have two daughters. Whatever I leave someday will ultimately be divided between both of you anyway. Melissa needed part of hers earlier, so I gave it to her earlier.”
I looked down at the notebook.
