I watched her through the peephole, deciding whether to open the door. She was wearing Lululemon and holding a Starbucks cup, her face tight with stress.
I opened the door.
“We need to talk,” Jennifer said, pushing past me into the apartment.
“Hello to you, too, Jen.”
She spun around, and I saw she’d been crying. “Is it true? Everything Mom told me? You’ve been secretly rich this whole time?”
“I’ve been successful. Yes.”
“And you’ve been paying for… for everything for years?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t I tell the family that constantly judged me, pitied me, and treated me like a failure? Why didn’t I reveal my success to the people who called me unambitious? Jen, I wonder.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You put me as a co-signer on your mortgage without my knowledge. You forged documents that made me financially liable for your $780,000 house. How is that fair?”
Her face crumpled. “I didn’t think you’d find out. And we needed someone with good credit.”
“So you committed fraud.”
“It’s not like that, Jennifer.”
“That’s exactly what it is. You falsified legal documents. You put my assets at risk. And you did it while looking down on me for driving a Honda.”
She sank onto my couch, crying harder.
“No, I didn’t know about your job, your money, any of it. If I’d known—”
“If you’d known, you would have asked me for more. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? You’re here right now asking me to help Mom and Dad, aren’t you?”
She went quiet.
“Jen, I loved you all enough to support you in secret. I gave you nearly a million dollars over eight years. I asked for nothing in return except, I don’t know, basic respect, the benefit of the doubt. And I couldn’t even get that.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Take responsibility. Confess to the fraud. Clear my name. Accept the consequences of your choices. But Mom and Dad’s businesses are not my problem anymore.”
She left 20 minutes later, still crying.
Three weeks after my phone call with Mom, my attorney, Sarah, called.
“Rebecca, your parents’ attorney reached out. They want to negotiate a settlement.”
“No settlement. We discussed this. They confess to the fraud and clear my name, or I press charges.”
“They’re offering to pay back the fraudulent accounts in monthly installments.”