He looked away.
“How much did Wayne take?”
Russell walked back into the living room without answering. His silence told me enough, so I continued reading.
Mama explained that five years after my accident, she had discovered paperwork showing that Wayne had lied from the beginning. My settlement hadn’t been $42,000.
It had been $63,000.
Wayne had taken every dollar.
Mama confronted him after finding the documents, and although he denied everything for two days, he eventually admitted what he had done. But Mama didn’t leave him, report him, or tell me the truth because after losing my biological father and struggling financially, she had become terrified of losing the stability Wayne represented.
Her letter didn’t try to make that decision sound noble. She admitted plainly that when forced to choose, she had protected her marriage instead of protecting her daughter.
One sentence hurt more than everything else.
She had chosen her comfort over my justice.
