The top envelope was a department store credit card statement in my mother’s name. Balance: $3,900. Day spas. A boutique. Two large restaurant tabs. The signature on the receipt scans was a clumsy forgery of her cursive.

Back in the kitchen, with the faucet running to cover us, she told me the rest. Melissa had “borrowed” the card for emergencies. And on the third of every month, Derek collected six hundred dollars in cash from her Social Security.

I did the arithmetic on the spot. Eighty-four hundred in cash. Thirty-nine hundred in fraudulent charges. Twelve thousand three hundred dollars taken from a widow living on $1,860 a month.

I dried my hands. “Get your coat. We’re leaving.”

While she went to find her shoes, I noticed her worn Bible on the cot with a manila envelope sticking out of the Book of Psalms. I pulled it free.

It was a completed application for Golden Pines Senior Apartments, with a receipt for a $75 deposit to hold a spot on the waiting list. My mother had been hoarding ones and fives to arrange her own quiet removal, so she wouldn’t be a burden to the people bleeding her.