Chapter 4 - The Price of Refusing Her Help
I bought a prepaid phone at a pharmacy on East Main Road.
The girls qualified for temporary health coverage through Rhode Island’s public program, but the application required documents Beatrice still held: Andrew’s final employment records, the termination notice, and proof of our former residence.
She refused to release them.
Theodore offered to call her.
I told him not to.
For years, powerful people had spoken around me while Beatrice decided what I was allowed to know. I needed to stop solving that problem by finding a more powerful person.
I contacted a Newport attorney named Rebecca Sloan, who handled nonprofit governance and employment disputes.
Rebecca separated the situation into four questions.
Had the foundation misrepresented services provided to my family?
Had I performed compensable work without pay?
Had Beatrice improperly used charitable funds?
And what had legally happened to Windward Cottage?
“Do not assume the house is recoverable,” Rebecca warned. “Your husband’s purchase option may have ended with his death. But the records will tell us whether Beatrice’s explanation was truthful.”
I authorized her to request foundation documents and public property records.
The decision cost me almost everything I had left from Andrew’s personal checking account.
That night, Sophie developed a fever.
I spent three hours at an urgent-care clinic filling out coverage forms while Nora slept across two plastic chairs. Clara held the prepaid phone and watched the battery level because I had forgotten the charger.
When we returned to the cottage, a woman was waiting beside the porch.
June Kelley had managed Hawthorne House for eighteen years. She was fifty-eight, broad-shouldered, practical, and usually careful not to show what she thought.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Then why are you?”
June looked toward Theodore’s sister’s house.
“Mrs. Hawthorne told staff you stole donor records.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
She handed me a photocopied catering schedule.
My name appeared beside twelve foundation events.
Each entry showed an hourly wage, transportation allowance, and childcare reimbursement.
“They billed the foundation every time you carried a tray,” June said. “Beatrice signed your checks.”
“I never received checks.”
June’s eyes lowered.
“I know that too.”
She had seen enough to understand the fraud months earlier.
May you like
She had stayed silent because Beatrice controlled something June could not afford to lose.
Her husband’s nursing-home payments.
