“You didn’t ask for help.”
My voice was weak, but the room was quiet enough that I did not have to repeat myself.
“You told me to transfer forty-two hundred dollars while paramedics were taking me into trauma.”
She waved one hand.
“I didn’t know how serious it was.”
“I told you I’d been in a car accident.”
“You were talking.”
“I told you they were checking the baby.”
For half a second, her expression shifted.
Then she chose anger again.
“You always do this.
You take one stressful moment and turn it into some indictment of my entire character.”
Sarah was standing just outside the door.
I had not noticed her return.
Apparently my mother had not either.
The paramedic stepped into the room carrying a small plastic bag containing the things recovered from the crash.
“Actually,” Sarah said, “she could barely breathe when you called.”
Mom turned.
Recognition hardened her face.
“You’re the one who hung up on me.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
Sarah’s expression remained perfectly professional.
“She was a trauma patient under active treatment.”
Mom looked at her lawyer as though expecting him to prosecute Sarah on the spot.
He did nothing.
That seemed to infuriate her more.
“This is ridiculous.
Harie has paid me forty-two hundred every month for almost two years.
Everyone knows that.”
The lawyer’s attention sharpened.
“Paid you for what service?”
Mom hesitated.
I knew that hesitation.
It was the moment she usually invented a better version of reality.
“For helping her.”
“With what?”
“Life.
Errands.
Family things.”
“Was there a written employment agreement?”
“No, because normal families don’t write contracts every time they help each other.”
Grandpa folded his arms.
The lawyer looked back at the account document.
“Then recurring voluntary transfers do not make you an owner of her account.”
Mom’s cheeks reddened.
“You said we could force the bank to restore access.”
“I said that if you were a co-owner, there might be an issue with one owner excluding another.
You told me you were a co-owner.”
“I said it was basically joint.”
“That is not the same thing.”
For the first time, her attorney sounded annoyed.
Mom turned on Grandpa.
“You planned this.”
He almost smiled, but there was no humor in it.
“I kept a piece of paper.”
