Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Said She Paid For Everything
My mother told everyone she had sacrificed her life for me.
That part traveled fast.
By breakfast the next morning, my aunt had called.
Then my cousin.
Then one of Mom’s pickleball friends, which was impressive considering I had never given the woman my number.
According to Diane, she had spent months “raising my babies” while I lay helpless on the sofa.
She paid my bills.
Bought groceries.
Kept the house running.
And I had repaid her by “calling security on my own mother.”
There was one problem.
Almost none of it was true.
My husband, Aaron, died eleven months before my leg injury.
A sudden aneurysm.
One ordinary Tuesday morning, I had a husband making terrible coffee in our kitchen.
By Wednesday night, I was a widow holding two three-month-old babies.
Aaron had planned responsibly.
Life insurance.
Retirement accounts.
A modest investment portfolio.
And a small residential-property company we had built together.
I was grieving.
I was not broke.
After my surgery six months later, Diane moved into my guest room “temporarily.”
She said I needed help.
I did.
For the first several weeks, I was grateful.
She fed the twins.
Drove me to appointments.
Picked up prescriptions.
Then gratitude quietly became authority.
Mom opened my mail because walking to the mailbox was “ridiculous.”
She paid household bills from the account I gave her access to.
She started telling visitors when I was too tired to see them.
Then she began telling me.
“You need to sleep.”
“You can’t handle this.”
“Let me do it.”
Those sentences sounded like care.
Until I started saying no.
That was when her face changed.
The morning after the incident, my attorney, Rachel Kim, came to my house.
Aaron and I had worked with her for years.
I showed her the envelope.
It was from an insurance administrator.
My name.
Mom’s address.
Rachel frowned.
“Why would this go to Diane?”
“I don’t know.”
Inside was a notice about a reimbursement claim connected to my home-care policy.
Amount paid:
$6,400.
I stared at it.
“I never filed this.”
Rachel looked at the dates.
The claim covered four weeks of “full-time family caregiving services.”
Caregiver:
Diane Mercer.
My mother.
I laughed once.
Rachel didn’t.
“Did you know she was being paid?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
Rachel gave me the look lawyers give when they want you to stop guessing.
“We verify.”
So we did.
And by that afternoon, we learned Mom had received far more than $6,400.
May you like
She hadn’t been supporting us for free.
She had been billing for the privilege.
