Paige lunged for the phone, but an officer stepped between us.

My mother looked from the lawyer to the notary, hunting for a loophole.

“That recording doesn’t prove the money was ever yours!” she shouted. “You sent it because you were a good son, and once it’s deposited, it’s legally mine!”

I laid out four years of international transfer receipts, my payroll slips, texts where she’d promised to manage my money to build my house, messages where she swore Gwen was being cared for.

Then I set one small folded paper in front of her.

It was the receipt from the shop that had bought my wife’s hair for a hundred and fifty dollars.