“You cannot simply cut off my grocery money.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently I can.”
A long silence followed.
Then her voice softened the way it always did when ang:er stopped working.
“Claire, sweetheart, if this is about Sophie—”
“It is.”
“I already told you. I wasn’t saying she should starve. I was saying there were alternatives.”
“Crackers.”
“You’re deliberately twisting my words.”
“No. I’m finally listening to them.”
Mom sighed dramatically and began listing everything she’d done for me.
She raised me.
Stayed awake when I was sick.
Paid for dance lessons.
Helped with college applications.
All true.
But she left out the parts that mattered now.
Dad had earned most of the family income.
I got through college with scholarships, loans, and part-time jobs.
After he passed away, I quietly took over Mom’s expenses because she insisted she couldn’t manage alone.
“What am I supposed to eat?” she demanded.
“Use your income.”
The silence told me I had reached the real issue.
Mom wasn’t poor.
She received Social Security, Dad’s survivor benefits, and income from a small investment account.
Together, it was more than many retirees lived on comfortably.
But she spent her own money on clothes, beauty appointments, weekend trips, gifts, and restaurant lunches.
My money paid for what she called necessities.
“You know my budget is complicated,” she snapped.
“No,” I said. “Your budget is comfortable because I’ve been subsidizing it.”
She hung up.
Monday morning, my younger brother, Daniel, called from Denver.
“Mom says you’re cutting her off because she made one comment about Sophie.”
“Did she mention why the comment bothered me?”
“She said you’re overreacting.”
Of course she did.
I explained everything.
Daniel went quiet.
Then he said,
“Wait. You give her twenty-eight hundred dollars every month just for food?”
“Yes.”
“Claire, that’s thirty-three thousand six hundred dollars a year.”
Hearing the number aloud made my stomach turn.
“And you’re paying the house expenses too?” he asked.
“Most of them.”
NEXT PAGE
