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“Mom. Thanks, but I really can’t tonight.” I won’t stay. “I’ll come over Thursday. We can go to the diner you like for dinner.”

“We can do that, too.” She picks up a bag of lettuce and tosses it in the fridge. “It’s a rough week, honey, for both of us. Shutting ourselves in won’t make it any easier.”

I let loose a slow breath. She’s right. As hard as it is for me, it must be even worse for her. Only by her choice am I here today. I need to be grateful, sympathetic.

“It is.” I nod. “What is the paperwork you wanted me to take a look at? Is it your retirement package?” Mom retired last year. It’s not that she’s too old to keep working, the woman has a mind as sharp as a filet knife. But she’s taught second grade for twenty-five years. She’d had enough.

“No. I went through that already. I got a call from your father’s work.” She redirects the conversation so quickly; it takes me a second to rejoin her.

“The plastics plant? I thought they went out of business years ago.” They’d laid him and half his team off when hewas first diagnosed, taking away not only his income, but his health insurance. Three years after he passed away from lung cancer, the plant had been shut down.

I was happy when I heard on the news that the company had gone out of business and the owner had declared bankruptcy. He’d lost everything to a competitor who’d eaten up the market.

No one deserved it more than that man.

A year later, when it was revealed that his wife had left him and he’d eaten a bullet, I smiled. I’d even gone to his grave after his funeral and danced.

The fucker.

A bullet was too easy for him, he should have been given a slow and painful death. Like Dad.

“They did shut down, but the company was actually purchased by someone. They called to tell me there was a small pension your father never mentioned. He would be sixty-five now if he hadn’t died, so they are offering to pay it out.”

“Oh. That’s good, right? You’ll get that now, right?” I loosen my grip on the chair. More income will do her good. Her own pension is enough for her to live on, and she’d been good at saving over the years. But any added cushion will help ease her mind. And this time of year, anything that helps her relax is helpful.

“It’s not much, but yes. I get it.” She finishes putting the rest of the vegetables away. “I’ll get the paperwork.” She disappears into her bedroom that’s just off the living room, and when she returns, she’s carrying a two-inch, three-ring binder.

“They sent all that?” I point to the thick stack of paperwork.

“No, but I put what they sent in here.” It thunks as it hits the kitchen table, and she flips open the cover. “Everything for your dad is in here.” She fingers the tabs on the side of the pages until she finds the one labeled ‘Pension.’

Shehands me the letter first, while working the stapled packet from the rings. At a quick glance, it seems all straightforward.

“Is there a direct deposit form in there?” I point to the packet she’s holding.

“Yes.” She flips through and finds it.

“All right. You need to fill that out, so the money just goes straight to your bank account. Unless you want a paper check? But it looks like there’s a fee for that.”

“A fee for a real check? Is that legal?” She sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs and I do the same.

“I’m not sure. I doubt they’d do it if they couldn’t.” I flip through the rest of the packet. Standard information, nothing out of the ordinary. “Mom. It’s almost a thousand dollars a month.” I stop at the last page with the calculations on it.

“Well, Dad was in his forties when they let him go. He’d worked there for almost twenty years.” She takes the packet back, running her fingers over the page. “It would have been nice to know about this back then, though. I could have cashed it in.”

She blinks away tears and looks away from me while she wipes her hand across her eyes.

“It would have helped with the medical costs and his funeral. And then…” She shakes her head, not finishing the thought. “Maybe things could have been different.”

It would have helped with the burial expenses for Quinn, too.

My stomach clenches.

“Well, you’ll have it now. But you should do the direct deposit.”

She nods. “Yes. Of course. Let me get my checkbook so I can fill it out. You have a scanner thingy at home, right? Can you take it and send it for me?” She’s already out of the kitchen when she finishes herquestion.

“Sure,” I say to the empty room, checking that the form can be emailed.

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