I deleted the message.
Then another text appeared.
This one came from Hannah.
*Aunt Liv, I’m sorry they treated you like that.*
*You looked beautiful in your red dress.*
*And the restaurant was
the prettiest place I’ve ever seen.*
*I know you planned everything. I saw the emails on Mom’s computer.*
I had to pull into a gas station.
I sat beneath the bright lights, holding my phone, and cried.
Not because Hannah’s message was cruel.
Because she was the first person that evening who had truly seen me.
The next morning, I made a decision.
I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop and began reviewing every major expense I’d covered for my family over the previous twelve years.
It took hours.
Dad’s medication.
Twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars.
Property taxes.
Thirty-two thousand.
The roof.
Eleven thousand.
Mom’s car insurance.
Two thousand eight hundred.
