She sat across from me but did not remove her coat.
“I brought proof,” she said.
“Proof of what?”
“That our mother was there for us.”
She opened the album.
There was Mom at Hannah’s school concerts.
Mom decorating a birthday cake.
Mom standing beside her son at graduation.
Mom carrying boxes into Hannah’s college dormitory.
“She stayed with me for three days when I moved in,” Hannah said.
I stared at the picture.
“My father slept in his truck when he took me to college because he couldn’t afford a motel.”
Hannah slowly closed the album.
“She told us she paid her own way through school.”
I placed the canceled tuition checks on the table.
Hannah examined the first one, then the next.
“These were written after she left you?”
“Yes.”
“Why would your father do that?”
“Because he honored promises even after other people broke theirs.”
Hannah’s anger shifted direction.
“We should confront her.”
“I didn’t come here to destroy your family.”
“She already lied to us.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m ready to stand in front of her.”
Hannah hesitated.
“Our family is having a gathering tomorrow,” she said. “Mom is supposed to give a speech.”
“About what?”
“About how she built her life from nothing.”
I looked at the checks again.
“Her graduation certificate is hanging in the living room,” Hannah added.
Something inside me hardened.
