January 15: Check #2283, $1,400, payable to Pam Kessler.
Four checks. Five thousand six hundred dollars.
The handwriting on all four was my mother’s.
I turned the statement around and pushed it across the table.
“Mom. What are these?”
She looked at the checks. Her face flushed pink, all the way up to her white hair.
“I gave those to Pam,” she said. “To help with their house payment. While Mark’s off work.”
“You gave them? Pam didn’t ask?”
“Pam didn’t ask. I offered.” Her chin came up. “It’s my money, Julie. Your father left it to me. I can give it to whoever I want.”
“You’re right. It is your money.” I took a breath. “But Mom, you were giving Pam fourteen hundred dollars a month for her house payment while you sat here in your coat because you thought you couldn’t afford propane.”
Mom didn’t answer. She looked down at her hands.
“Did Pam know the tank was low?”
“I don’t think so,” Mom said quietly. “I didn’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
“Because she would have felt bad. And she already feels so bad, Julie. Mark can’t work. His short-term disability ran out in December. They’ve got two kids at home and the mortgage, and his medical bills from the surgery. She cries every time she comes out here. I couldn’t add to it.”
So my mother had been quietly paying her daughter’s mortgage and freezing in her own house so her daughter wouldn’t feel guilty.
And my sister, it seemed, had cut corners on the propane, maybe without knowing how bad things had gotten. Or maybe she knew and didn’t want to look.
I didn’t know which it was. I needed to find out.
But not like this. Not on the phone, not in anger, not while Mom sat there begging me to keep the peace.
“Mom, I’m not going to fight with Pam,” I said. “But I’m going to make sure you’re never cold again. The propane’s in my name now. The co-op will watch the tank and fill it automatically. You never have to worry about it again.”
