Nina looked at me.
“Twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and eighty-two dollars.”
Derek slowly exhaled.
I closed my eyes.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars.
Money I had thought was disappearing because life was expensive.
Money I had blamed myself for not saving.
Money I had cut vacations for.
Money I had worked overtime for.
It had been going somewhere.
To them.
Mom began crying.
“I was going to pay it back.”
“When?”
She had no answer.
Then Nina placed one final document on the table.
“This is the part you should read carefully.”
Mom stared at it.
It was a notice from the bank.
The attempted loan against the house had been denied.
Not because the bank had rejected my mother.
Because the property legally belonged to the trust.
My mother had never owned it.
