“She said she was covering expenses.”
“She never paid a cent.”
“I suspected.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else has she said?”
Linda hesitated.
“That the twins were too much for you. That she frequently paid for their food.”
I closed my eyes.
My mother had not merely taken from me.
She had built a fictional version of our lives where she was the generous parent rescuing her incompetent daughter.
Linda continued.
“And there’s something else you should know.”
“What?”
“Your mother didn’t decide to take that Tahiti trip spontaneously.”
I straightened.
“What do you mean?”
“Vanessa told me about it nearly a month ago.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“A month?”
“Yes.”
“But Mom only cancelled my tickets yesterday.”
“She’d been telling people for weeks that she, Vanessa, and Derek were going to Tahiti.”
I stopped breathing.
That meant my mother had planned it.
Weeks in advance.
