“The one you went to when Dad got sick. The owner recognized me from the photos you used to show him. I picked up extra weekend shifts driving for six months to buy it back.”

I opened the box. Resting on the velvet were my diamond wedding earrings.

The ones I’d sacrificed to buy his father more time.

“I don’t deserve to sit at this table with you,” Austin whispered, staring at his calloused hands.

“When Dad died, I didn’t look at you and see a grieving widow.

I looked at you and saw an asset. A resource that had suddenly freed up. That ledger Iris gave me — I read it every night for a month. Four hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

But the money wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was realizing I’d treated the woman who gave me life like an ATM.”