I opened my bank account.
The transfer had gone into a secondary checking account that my mother managed with my permission. I had set it up years earlier after my father’s death. At first, it paid her rent and utilities. Over time, it became the account she used for family expenses.
I reviewed the transactions.
There was a charge for airfare to Miami.
Five tickets.
A resort deposit.
Designer clothing.
Two spa appointments.
A seafood restaurant.
A car service from the airport.
A jewelry store in Bal Harbour.
My thumb stopped over the screen.
The jewelry purchase was dated four days before Christmas.
Three thousand eight hundred dollars.
The account balance was forty-two dollars and sixteen cents.
I scrolled backward.
There was no payment to a night nurse.
No grocery delivery.
No pharmacy charge.
No payment to the cleaning service I had arranged.
Then I noticed something else.
A series of transfers, all for the same amount.