For a second, she stares at me, her cucumbers dropping from her fingers onto the floor with a plop.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Josie. You weredying. You lost all of your hair.”
“How could I forget? You carry that tote bag with my picture everywhere you go.”
The Ten of Pentacles: a symbol of family legacy, wealth, security.
In my case, the longest con. Because this morning, I took Mom’s Social Security card and went straight to Shelton Savings and Loan, accessing the accounts tied to the GoFundMe she set up decades ago. No surprise, she’s been skimming from the start. Started small, testing the waters. Got bolder as she got comfy. Then greedy. The statements showed it all: regular withdrawals masked as medical expenses. Payments to bullshit companies with names like Hope4Cancer.
Money rerouted right back to her personal account, naturally.
MamaBearSharon’s been helping herself to donations from strangers and basically using every grimy trick in the book to keep the cash flowing.
When I closed the account, I vowed to track down every single person who donated, every well-meaning soul who fell for Mom’s lies.
I’ll start by paying them back. Every cent. One by one. Even if it takes me the rest of my life.
“All these years,” I continue, my voice shaking with something between anger and disbelief. “All those illnesses. You made them up, didn’t you? Cancer, fake. Asthma, fake. Jesus, Mom. If you’dwanted attention and friends, you could have just joined a Pilates cult like a normal person.”
My laugh is empty. My bravado is faltering.
My mother’s voice shifts, becomes cold. Flat. Reptilian.
“You were sick, and I took care of you. Everything I did was for you. Do you remember all those nights you spent puking? How you couldn’t even stand up in the shower? I thought my baby was going to die!”
She bursts into tears now, shaking her head, clutching her chest. I have to fight every single instinct to comfort her. Because that’s what I’ve been doing my whole damn life.
“If I was sick,” I say, my voice steady, lethal, “it was because youmademe sick. The doctors said I was fine and you—”
“What do doctors know? I had a mother’s intuition! I could see you were so ill.”
“Tell me about my special insulin from Germany, Mom. Because I haven’t touched it since Nonna died, and I’m totally fine. Feeling great, actually. Allergies? Are you fucking kidding me? How did you do it? How did you make me blow up from that bee sting? Did Dr. Don give you something that he knew would make me sick?”
“Josie, stop it! Don’t talk to me that way. You’re scaring me. Maybe you need a psych eval. I bet Dr. Don can give us a referral—”
I laugh again; I do sound crazy. But I know I’ve never been saner.
“I feel like such a fucking idiot. But then again, why would I not trust my own mother? The one person who has always told me she would protect me?”
The shoes keep dropping.
“Have you been poisoning me? Your gross tea! That’s why Ihad the stomach flu. And then, when I blacked out in the car, I had just been to your house! Holy shit, it was you all along.”
“What aboutme, Josie? Your father’s heart attack was so sudden. So tragic. He was much too young. All our plans, our life together—up in smoke. I was in shock. People kept telling me to stay strong for the baby—how could I? I couldn’t eat or sleep, I could barely exist. You needed so much—I couldn’t handle it. I started to unravel. But that place…” She shivers. “Your grandmother never should have sent me to Ravenswood. The doctors and nurses all saw me as a failure. The pathetic widow who couldn’t keep it together for her baby. I was a problem to be managed and medicated. They drugged me into a stupor. Mocked and neglected me and didn’t give a shit how miserable I was. When I finally got out and back to you, no thanks to them, I made a vow to myself that my daughter would get the care and attention I’d needed, one way or another. I would find a path to truly heal.” She raises her chin defiantly. “And I did.”
I feel my stomach twist into a knot as her words sink in.
“So…what?” I manage. I think of how many times I slept on the bathroom floor, my cheek pressed to the cold toilet seat. Praying to die because the pain was intolerable. Praying to live because I was told I wouldn’t make it beyond the next six months.
“You poisoned your own daughter…You made me sick with illnesses I didn’t have…I got chemotherapy treatments I didn’t need so people would feel sorry foryou? So that people would see you as a martyr instead of a failure, and give youmoney?”
But I see it now. How she kept me sick, kept me dependent. She had to make sure I stayed her perfect little cash cow, fragile and helpless. Every doctor’s visit, every panic over my health, they were only ways to keep the donations rolling in, to keep herself in the lifestyle she wanted while making me her meal ticket.
I was never her daughter. I was just her goddamn moneymaker.
And yet now her eyes flash with something like pride.
“I did what I had to do, Josie. No one understood my pain. I was invisible. So I made them see me. And I made them see you, too. My special baby. Everyone loved you. You were so cute with that bald head.”
