My mother’s social worker called me at nine. She’d already been contacted, and she’d already answered, and what she’d put in writing was the opposite of what my sister claimed. She wrote that I had never taken a dollar from my mother and that the nineteen thousand dollars I’d spent was documented as my own contribution. She also included copies of every care invoice I’d paid over the previous three years.
Then she mentioned something I hadn’t known. My sister had requested my mother’s financial records before filing the petition. The bank had sent her the statements, and she had attached only the pages showing transfers into my mother’s account. She left out the pages showing the money going back out to the nursing facility, the pharmacy, and the home-care agency. My attorney called it selective disclosure.
But the social worker had one more thing. During her visit, my mother had asked her to open a drawer and take out a small notebook. It contained handwritten entries going back to 2020—dates, expenses, and notes about who had paid them. My mother had written my name beside almost every expense. At the bottom of the last page she’d written, “My daughter in Nevada keeps asking what I’m worth. My son keeps asking what I need.”
The judge reviewed the notebook before the hearing. My sister’s attorney then asked for a continuance, saying they needed time to investigate the finances. The judge asked him why, since his client had already received the statements. He had no answer. My mother looked at me from across the room and said quietly, “Don’t let them make you apologize for taking care of me.” Then she handed the judge one final page she’d kept behind the notebook. It was a letter from my sister dated two years earlier—and it began, “When Mom dies, we need to make sure the house gets divided fairly.”
