At some point, after the second glass of wine, Brittany leaned back in her chair and said, “It must be nice to have half a million just sitting there.”
The fork stopped halfway to my mouth.
I looked at my mother.
She looked down at her plate.
That told me everything.
I had not told Brittany that number. Not once. I had told Diane months earlier when she cornered me in my kitchen while Brittany was outside smoking. She asked how I was “really doing financially,” and I made the mistake of answering like she was a mother instead of a debt collector wearing one’s face. I said I had built up savings, that I was thinking about investing more carefully, maybe buying a rental property someday. She pressed. I hesitated. Then I told her the approximate number.
Her eyes changed.
Not with pride.
With calculation.
At dinner, when Brittany said it out loud, I knew Diane had repeated it.
