Then she smiled. “Besides, it’s not like you had anything better to do. You were just sitting at home.”
That night, my mom came home, sat at the table, and crossed out four weeks of expected pay in her notebook, one line at a time.
Then she closed it and said softly, “I should have planned better.”
When she told me everything, something cold settled in my chest. Shame like that didn’t belong to a woman who worked her whole life, raised three kids, paid off a mortgage, and still offered kindness without asking for much in return. Claire thought politeness meant weakness.
She was wrong. I confronted her once. She shrugged and said my mom was “just helping.” I didn’t argue.
I walked away and did something else instead. My daughter Erin has a friend named Riley who runs a local YouTube channel—real stories, real people, real proof. My mom had texts.
Photos. Updates. Receipts.
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