“I can’t take your retirement money, Mom.”

“You’re not taking anything, I’m putting it where it ought to be.” She pressed her thumb into the joint of her right hand, working at the knot of muscle left by thirty years of scrubbing hardwood floors.

“We’ve got six days until the probate hearing on May fourteenth.”

“David was talking his way out of a corporate headache when he put me on leave,” I said, shutting the leather wallet and leaving the three dollar bills lying on the laminate.

“He was worried about the distribution center’s profits, not about me.”