And Evelyn had been spending almost none of it on them.

The investigators had found a trail of it draining steadily away into gambling debts — online accounts, cash withdrawals, a mounting hole she’d been throwing my brother’s money into for years while his children went hungry seven blocks from my door.

“She was living one life and letting them live another,” Clara said.

“The benefits kept coming in, and she kept them for herself, and she made sure no one who might notice ever got close enough to.” I thought about my brother, dying on an ordinary Tuesday, believing to his last breath that he was leaving his family safe and provided for.

He had done everything right.