Part 3: Five Years of Lies
Part 3: Five Years of Lies
I stood and faced my mother.
"Where did the money go?"
She forced a nervous smile.
"Michael... let's not do this tonight."
"Answer me."
"I used it for the house."
"I sent enough money every month for the house... and for Sarah and Jamie."
She hesitated.
Prudence stepped in.
"We made sacrifices too."
I looked around the tiny service room.
"A sacrifice?"
"You call this a sacrifice?"
I pointed toward the spoiled rice.
"My son is eating food from the trash."
"My wife is sleeping beside a mop bucket."
"And you're serving imported wine to your friends."
No one had an answer.
Sarah quietly handed me a worn notebook.
"I kept everything."
Inside were five years of records.
Every transfer I had sent.
Every amount my mother claimed she received.
Every expense Sarah had actually been given.
Sometimes...
Nothing.
Some weeks they survived by washing neighbors' clothes for cash.
May you like
The mansion I believed was our home...
had become my mother's palace.
