“I’m not asking you to hurt them.”
“I know.”
“I just want to stop financing them.”
“That,” he said, “we can do.”
Those words changed everything.
For years, I had confused boundaries with cruelty.
My mother had encouraged that confusion.
Whenever I said no, I was selfish.
Whenever I asked for repayment, I was obsessed with money.
Whenever I became exhausted, I was dramatic.
But somehow, nobody ever called Evelyn selfish for expecting her abandoned daughter to finance three able-bodied adults while raising twins alone.
I opened my banking app.
The numbers made me feel sick.
Every month I paid the Cedar Ridge property taxes.
Homeowner’s insurance.
Landscaping.
Pool maintenance.
Part of the utilities.
And, because my mother had once called me crying about “keeping the family stable,” I had been depositing $1,400 every month into her account.
I had called it helping.
Now I called it what it was.
