My savings for my husband’s eye surgery kept disappearing. When I finally confronted my 6-year-old son, he calmly said he gave the money to “Granny.” The problem? I grew up in foster care, and the woman he described wasn’t my mother-in-law.
I set up a camera, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the truth.
The first time the money went missing, I thought I’d miscounted.
I was in my home office, staring at the bills spread across my desk. I’d been painstakingly saving money for my husband’s eye surgery, and the total was now $20 short.
I checked inside the envelope where I’d been keeping the money, just in case I’d missed a bill, but it was empty.
“That’s weird.”
I counted again, slower this time.
It was still short.
Maybe I’d remembered the total incorrectly. I sighed, wrote the current total on a slip of paper, then tucked it and the cash back into the envelope.
I returned the envelope to its hiding spot.
Three weeks.
That’s how much time we had before the risk of “possible vision loss” in Mark’s eye became permanent damage.
Insurance wasn’t covering enough.
The surgery had to be paid for up front. So for months, I had been cutting corners, selling what I could, and taking extra work.
And it was working. At this rate, we could have the funds we needed just in time.
I just had to ensure I counted correctly in the future.
So I made dinner, helped my son, Joseph, with his little wooden puzzle before bed, and told myself it was going to be fine.
The next time I opened the envelope, $50 was missing.
My fingers shook as I counted it again.
My pulse picked up. This couldn’t be happening!
***
Over the next two weeks, money kept disappearing.
$20, $30, $50.
All gone.
I searched every corner of our house for the missing money. Nothing.
I worked harder, cut back even more, and tried to make the numbers make sense.
And every day brought the deadline for making Mark’s surgery payment closer.
Then one afternoon, the envelope was noticeably thinner than before. I dumped the bills onto my desk so fast that one of them drifted to the floor.
I counted once, then again, then again, my fingers shaking so badly I had to start over twice.
There was no mistake.
$1000 was missing.
I grabbed the envelope and ran into the living room.
He sat up so fast his glasses slipped crooked on his face. “What? What happened?”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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