I didn’t know the money was booked as factory logistics.”

“Then tell the investigators what actually happened,” I said.

“She says that would destroy our family.”

“She said the same thing when she sent me away.”

Brielle cried.

It would have been easy to enjoy the reversal, to tell her she had finally learned what humiliation felt like.

Instead I remembered what it had been like to grow up afraid of making Marlene angry.

“You can tell the truth without making yourself responsible for every decision your mother made,” I said.