I Canceled Seven Hundred Dollars After Christmas Night Left My Daughter Alone in the Dark

“What’s that paper?” I asked.

“Just a routine form,” Margaret said.

“A legal release to clear up any confusion about the money you’ve sent over the past two years.”

“Let me see it,” I said.

She didn’t hand it to me.

Instead, she smoothed the fold against her knee, showing a typed heading at the top of the page that read Liability Release and Retroactive Gift Declaration.

“It just makes clear that your monthly nine-hundred-forty-dollar transfers were voluntary personal gifts,” Margaret said.