"Mom, Jeff and I are struggling too. Have a little consideration. Stop trying to mooch off us and just pay it."
I didn't argue. I didn't make a scene. I transferred the fifteen thousand right then and there.
But that money wasn't a room fee.
It was a lesson.
The kind they wouldn't recover from.
——
When Jeffrey held out his phone with the payment code, I'd frozen for a moment.
I looked at my daughter instinctively and asked:
"Ginny, you really think I should pay this?"
She looked at me, hesitated for two seconds, then said quietly:
"Mom, Jeff's right. You're my mother. Taking care of me is what you're supposed to do."
"Things are hard for us. Stop trying to squeeze us for a free ride."
I stared at her, stunned. I couldn't understand how, in her mind, *I* was the one freeloading.
Had she not seen how I'd spent this past month?
A month ago, Virginia had called me out of the blue.
"Mom, Jeff and my mother-in-law are going on vacation. There's no one to take care of me during my recovery."
"The baby's about to come. Can you come help me?"
Honestly, when I got that call, I was furious.