He Accused My Mother of Stealing $10,500 and Struck Her Over It – But the Envelope Waiting at the Doorman’s Desk Proved He’d Known Exactly Where That Money Was the Entire Time

He was not trying to punish her for a crime.

He was trying to manufacture a debt, a moral one, that he could then offer to forgive in exchange for the only thing he’d ever wanted from her, which was her money.

The slaps, I think, were not even part of the original plan; they were what happened when the plan met a woman who would not break on schedule, who kept insisting on her innocence, who would not perform the collapse he needed.

He hit her because she would not be frightened into the shape he required.