“What?”

“The PT. Ninety-one drives. Forty-five minutes each way. She sat in that car with you a hundred and eighty-two times and never once told you she was paying Simone $2,200 a month.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. But he was right. One hundred eighty-two car rides.

Small talk. Radio. Silence. And the whole time she was wiring money to my sister from the same account that would eventually cut me out entirely.

I haven’t spoken to my mother in five weeks. Simone texted me once. “Mama says you’re upset. Can we talk?” I didn’t respond. I don’t know what I’d say.

The china is in a box in my garage. I haven’t opened it. Grandma Lucille’s Blue Cornflower Corningware. I remember eating off those plates as a kid. Sunday dinners. Fried chicken. Collard greens. Lucille’s hands setting the table.

The letter is in the box too. Sealed. My name in Gloria’s handwriting on the front. I haven’t opened that either.

I will eventually. Not today.

It’s Tuesday night. I just finished a twelve-hour shift. Richard heated up leftover soup. The dog is asleep under the table. I’m sitting in the kitchen with my shoes still on because I haven’t had the energy to take them off yet.

I am strong. My mother is right about that. I have always been strong. I just didn’t know that was the thing she’d hold against me.

$412,000 to Simone. China to Bethany. Because Bethany figured it out.

Yeah. I figured it out.

Do you think Gloria was protecting Simone or punishing Bethany? Would you have opened the letter? Tell us.