Linda thought I had stopped helping, I said.

Her fingers went still on the napkin.

Linda does not need to know about our arrangement, she said.

She already knows enough to think I stopped.

People hear one sentence and build a story, she said.

Who gave her the sentence, I asked, and she took a slow sip of her tea and said, I do not remember, and I waited, and she picked the napkin back up and began folding it into another small square.

It is not reasonable to audit every dollar after you gave it willingly, she said, and I said, I am not auditing you, I am asking you to tell me what I am paying for, and she set the napkin on her knee and said the thing that was, in the end, the whole of her defense.