My brother fired the woman who was keeping our grandmother alive. And I stood right there in the kitchen and let him do it.

I keep going back to that. How easy it was. How sure the two of us were, standing there nodding at each other like we’d cracked some big case.

Let me back up a minute. My grandmother, Ruth, is ninety-one. She raised me more than my own mother did, so I’ve always just called her Nana. Sharp as a tack on her good days, foggy on the bad ones. After her last fall we knew she couldn’t be by herself anymore, so we brought in a home health aide. Her name was Maria. Five days a week, like clockwork.

And honestly? She was wonderful. Made Nana’s breakfast, sorted out all those little pills, sat and read the newspaper out loud because Nana’s eyes aren’t what they were. One time Maria painted Nana’s nails this soft pink, and Nana held her hands up to everybody who walked in the door for a week straight. I’ll be honest with you, I should have remembered that when all this started. I didn’t.

The trouble started with two hundred dollars.

Nana kept cash in her dresser drawer. Always has, since the bank closed her branch and she decided the whole system was crooked. Old habit. Anyway, one Sunday my brother Dale was over and Nana mentioned the drawer felt light. Then she counted it. Two hundred short. And the only person in and out of that house all week, besides us, was Maria.

Dale’s face changed right there. “Two hundred dollars doesn’t just walk off, Carol,” he said to me. And I didn’t argue. That’s the part I have to live with. I didn’t argue.

So Dale, who watches too many of those true crime shows, went and bought one of those little cameras.

The kind that looks like a phone charger plugged into the wall. He set it up on the dresser, pointed right at the drawer. Didn’t tell Maria. Didn’t tell me till it was already up there. “If she’s clean, she’s clean,” he said. “If she’s not, we’ll know.”

I felt a little sick about it, sneaking around on her like that. But I let it go. I figured he was probably wrong and we’d all laugh about it later. Go figure.

Four days. That’s all it took.

Dale called me on a Thursday night and his voice was tight. “You need to come see this.” I drove over and he had his laptop open on the coffee table. He’d already watched it. He played me a clip, maybe thirty seconds long. And there it was. Maria, in her scrubs, opening that dresser drawer. Counting out bills. Folding them into her pocket. Then closing the drawer and walking out of frame like nothing happened.

My stomach just sort of went heavy. I wanted to be wrong so bad, and there it was on the screen.