I’ve been out of the workforce for thirty years.
Is there any chance someone would hire me?
Her reply came nineteen minutes later.
Never apologize for raising your family.
Send me your résumé.
For the next week, while Mark went to work believing I was planning dinners, I relearned Excel, inventory platforms, procurement systems, and logistics software.
Then I requested twenty-four months of statements from our joint accounts.
Seventeen identical transfers appeared.
$2,450.
Cima Management Services LLC.
Seventeen times.
Rachel walked into my kitchen that afternoon and found me staring at them.
My oldest daughter was thirty, married, and observant enough to know immediately that something was wrong.
“Mom?”
I turned the laptop toward her.
Her face lost its color.
“Mom,” she whispered.
“You already know?”
“Know what?”
Rachel slowly unlocked her phone.
Two months earlier, a notification had appeared on Mark’s iPad while she’d been helping him troubleshoot an app.
