There were evenings I cried so hard I couldn’t finish brushing my teeth.

Accountability and grief were not opposites.

They could live in the same room.

PART 11: Helen Comes to Dinner

Helen arrived on Friday carrying homemade vegetable soup.

My mother-in-law had always been practical, uncomfortable with expensive gifts and more interested in whether I’d eaten than what I wore.

She found me sitting on the kitchen floor, sorting receipts from our household accounts.

I had been trying to separate business charges from family purchases, a task that should have been simple but had become a monument to confusion.