Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN I CALLED A THIEF
Anna had been twenty-three when I destroyed her in front of forty people.
I was thirty-two.
Richard and I had been married five years.
My mother, June, had worked at Carter Machine Works almost her entire adult life.
Payroll.
Inventory.
Anything the family needed.
When she developed ovarian cancer, the company established a forty-eight-thousand-dollar employee medical reserve to help cover treatment insurance would not.
It was not charity.
June had earned it through years of service and a benefits agreement Richard’s father had created for longtime employees.
Then the money disappeared.
Company records showed an unauthorized transfer.
Anna worked in bookkeeping.
Paul Carter—Richard’s older brother—said Anna had moved the funds.
Richard confirmed she had access.
Anna denied it.
I did not believe her.
The confrontation happened at the company Christmas dinner.
Anna wore pink.
I remembered every detail now.
The satin.
Pearl earrings.
The way she kept looking at Richard.
“Tell her.”
Richard said nothing.
Paul announced that Anna had been fired.
Their father, Walter, said police involvement would only embarrass everyone if she returned what remained.
I stood in front of her and said:
“My mother may lose treatment because of you.”
Anna went completely white.
“Helen, I didn’t take it.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“Ask Richard.”
I turned toward my husband.
He looked at the floor.
That was enough for me.
I told Anna never to come near my mother again.
She left the dinner crying.
Two weeks later she left Ohio.
Five years afterward, we heard she had died in a car accident in Arizona.
Thirty-one years old.
No husband.
No children.
I attended no funeral.
I told myself she had chosen exile.
Now my son was kneeling beside me with proof that Richard had known she was innocent.
“Why the dress?” I asked.
Daniel swallowed.
“Dad wanted everybody who remembered Anna to remember that night.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted to humiliate you?”
“No.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“He wanted to humiliate himself.”
I looked toward Richard’s casket.
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
“That means he doesn’t have to stand here while people know.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s why I left.”
May you like
He had understood before I did.
Richard had designed a confession that only began after Richard no longer had to face its consequences.
