My father’s lawyer delivered the photos and the financial records to my mother’s attorney.

The joint accounts remained frozen by court order during the initial divorce filings.

Without my father’s income, my mother had no way to pay her mortgage.

And Megan, in Chicago, suddenly found her credit cards declined.

She called me from her real number, her voice no longer weak or trembling.

“You think you’re smart, Clara?” she hissed when I answered.

“I know the truth, Megan,” I said.

“You don’t know anything,” she said. “You’ve always been the boring one, sweating in your work boots while I got out of that miserable town.”

“You stole from me,” I said.

“You offered it,” she said. “You wanted to be the hero. You wanted everyone to think you were so noble.”

“The money is gone, Megan,” I said. “Dad is divorcing Mom. It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper. “I need forty thousand dollars to settle my lease and my debts here.”

“I don’t have forty thousand dollars,” I said. “You took my last twelve thousand.”