The bank employee looked away, giving him privacy she probably knew he did not really have.
David answered.
“Where are you?” Clara asked loudly enough that I could hear her voice from his phone.
“At Mom’s bank.”
Silence.
It lasted less than two seconds.
But I saw it register on my son’s face.
Clara recovered quickly.
“Why?”
“There’s an account here with your name on it.”
Another pause.
Then came the same soft voice she had used in my kitchen.
“David, please don’t upset your mother.
She gets confused about financial things.”
David looked at me.
This time, the sentence did not land the way Clara expected.
This time, there was a transaction history between us.
“Come to the bank,” he said.
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“Come to the bank, Clara.”
He ended the call.
She arrived forty minutes later.
The silk dress was gone.
She wore cream trousers, dark glasses, and the same pearls from Mother’s Day.
She stepped into the office already talking.
“This is ridiculous.
I opened that account to help her.”
Nobody had yet told her what we knew.
David noticed that too.
“Help her how?”
Clara stopped.
“With the money you send.
Obviously.”
“Why did the money leave the account?”
Her eyes moved to the papers.
“Because I was managing it.”
“For what?”
“Expenses.”
I finally spoke.
“Which expenses?”
Clara turned toward me.
For the first time since I had known her, she looked uncertain about how much sweetness to put into her voice.
“Mother, you don’t always remember everything you spend.”
I reached into my purse and placed my leather notebook on the table.
“Then help me remember.”
She looked at it.
I opened to the page I had written the night before.
Mother’s Day.
$5,000.
Clara.
Eight.
“Tell me what you paid for,” I said.
Clara folded her arms.
“Groceries.
Utilities.
Repairs.
