Yoplait yogurt.
She has been eating these for breakfast ever since I can remember, always picking at the metal lid very carefully with her long manicured nails. Today is no exception. She gives me a small knowing smile and a nod.
"I wanted to tell you why I needed the money; it has nothing to do with gambling."
She raises an eyebrow.
She knows about my past and Lincoln's past. Hell, she knows that it was our father who taught us how to lose vast amounts of money very quickly around a card game.
"I was trying to do something good. I haven't gambled in over a year and I'm not going to."
"Okay, I'm listening.” She nods.
Dressed in a cashmere pajama set, her hair falls slightly around her face. Her makeup has already been flawlessly applied. I don't remember her ever leaving a room without a full face and I actually wonder if I'd even recognize her that way now.
"I needed the money to help Jacqueline."
"Jacqueline needed $200,000?” she asks, crossing her hands in front of her. I owe a total of $350,000 but I only borrowed two hundred from my trust fund.
"You have to listen, okay?"
"Okay.” She nods, taking another small spoonful of yogurt and swirling the fruit steadily.
“She told me that her mother was sick. She didn’t ask for anything and this was before she even knew who I really was. She was very ill and she needed an experimental surgery at a clinic in Minnesota. It is really hard to get approved and you have to pay for it up front.”
"Okay, I'm listening.” Mom licks her lower lip and puts her gaze back squarely on my eyes.
"I didn't want her to know that I was paying for that. I thought she would say no and I wanted her mom to get the surgery if it was the right thing, so I just called them. I knew her last name and I paid in full, completely anonymously.
“Unfortunately, there were complications. She had to be sedated for a while and there were more medical bills. Then Jacqueline found out that it was me. She was angry and upset. She thought that I should have told her and perhaps I should have, but I didn't and what was done was done.
“I decided to pay the rest anyway, whatever the additional costs would be, because there's no way that she could have. I thought that I could put it back before you noticed."
"Put it back how? Were you going to gamble again?"
"No," I snap at her, "I was going to work really hard, put in a lot of hours at work, take a lot of cases. I was waiting for a startup that I invested in to sell. There’re only a few more pieces of paperwork but it's getting held up. I was going to put back every cent, Mom.”
She glares at me.
“I wasn't stealing money from you or from my future and I wasn't gambling. And I know that I'm a difficult person to trust based on all the lies and everything that I put you through. But this was a nice thing I was doing. I was helping her."
"What happened to her mother?" Mom asks.
There's an actual sound of concern in her voice, which throws me off a little bit. It seems so unnatural and unfitting.
"She recovered. She has to have lab work done and get checked every three months for now, but so far so good. The turnaround has been 180 degrees. This treatment really helped and she probably wouldn't be alive without it."
"Well, then you did a good thing," Mom says, tilting her head.
"I'm just asking for your help, for some lenience. If the startup is bought, then I'll have the money to pay you back. I've invested more than ten percent of my salary into it and it's going to pay off big."
"Yeah, but you don't know when that's going to happen," she says.
"Mom, I'm not trying to threaten you but this is the deal. I don't have any other way to pay you back this money, so if you say that you're going to go to the police at the end of this month, what do you expect me to do?"
"I expect you to put it back. I expect you to borrow it from some of your friends or acquaintances or your boss, but I don't expect to be on the hook for this wonderful gift you gave Jacqueline and her mother. I mean, of course it's a nice thing