Chapter 6 - THE NINETY-TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR QUESTION
Nathan didn’t believe me at first.
“My mom doesn’t have ninety thousand dollars.”
I showed him Jenna’s photograph.
His face changed.
“Where did that come from?”
Jenna answered that question.
Their father had a life-insurance policy.
After debts and funeral expenses, Carol received approximately $146,000.
Nathan thought the entire amount had gone toward the mortgage and medical bills.
It hadn’t.
Carol had paid off a small credit-card balance.
Replaced her roof.
Then left more than ninety thousand dollars untouched.
Meanwhile, Nathan had been paying her car insurance.
Phone.
Prescriptions.
Repairs.
And now Hawaii.
I watched his expression go from confusion to anger.
Not at me.
At himself.
“She told me she was barely getting by.”
Jenna replied on speaker:
“She tells me the same thing.”
“Why did she show you the account?”
“She didn’t.”
Jenna sounded embarrassed.
“She left online banking open on the hotel desk after the timeshare presentation.”
Then she added:
“I took the picture because I knew nobody would believe me.”
Nathan stood and walked to the other side of the hospital room.
For the first time, he was experiencing the same feeling I had.
Not simply being lied to.
Realizing someone had used your concern for them as financial access.
But I did not let that erase what he had done.
“Your mom manipulated you.”
He nodded.
“You still transferred eighteen thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
“You still changed the alerts.”
“I know.”
“You still lied about your bonus.”
“Yes.”
Good.
No excuses.
Then Jenna sent another screenshot.
A message from Carol to a friend.
CAROL: Nathan always helps when I tell him his father would have wanted it.
My stomach tightened.
Nathan sat down.
His father.
That was the lever.
Grief.
Duty.
Guilt.
Carol had repeatedly told Nathan that his father’s dying wish was for him to “look after Mom.”
Maybe it had been.
But looking after someone and secretly financing their lifestyle were not the same thing.
Then Jenna wrote:
There’s more.
Dad left Nathan something too.
Nathan looked up.
“What?”
According to documents Jenna found in Carol’s travel folder, their father’s estate included a $30,000 distribution to each child.
Jenna received hers.
Nathan never did.
Carol had told Nathan there was nothing left after final expenses.
May you like
I stared at him.
His own mother had kept thirty thousand dollars that belonged to him while convincing him to steal eighteen thousand from our baby fund to take care of her.
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