But I saw her quickly fold the card and place it under her plate.
It wasn’t about the money.
Mom had spent years helping Melissa.
She’d watched her kids for free, cooked meals when Melissa worked late, and even emptied part of her retirement savings when Melissa and her husband bought their first house.
I was furious.
I almost said something right there.
Then I remembered the wooden box in Mom’s bedroom.
She’d shown it to me months earlier while we were cleaning out her closet.
Inside were dozens of things she’d saved from our childhood: report cards, drawings, hospital bracelets, old photographs.
And two small notebooks.
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