“I know. Take those out.”
She did. The total, with all the corrections, came to $74,280. That number broke down roughly as: $22,000 for the roof project, $18,500 for vehicle-related expenses, $11,200 for home adaptations and accessibility modifications, $9,100 for direct care costs including the partial respite aide records, and $13,480 for other documented household and care-related expenses across the twelve years.
I checked it three times. I looked for double-counting. I looked for items I’d claimed were one thing and were actually another. I found nothing wrong with it. The number was what it was.
“Okay,” I said.
“Seventy-four thousand, two hundred and eighty dollars,” Maya said. “That’s what you can show. What do you want to do with it?”
“I want to understand the full picture first. Before I do anything with the number.”
The full picture included something I’d been thinking about for a week, since a comment my mother had made a few years earlier that I hadn’t paid much attention to at the time. She’d said, in the middle of a conversation about Daniel’s business, “I try to help when I can.” She’d said it in a way that was slightly evasive, the way she talked about things she thought might create conflict.
I hadn’t pushed it then. Now I was wondering what “help when I can” had looked like in terms of numbers.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOUSEHOLD FINANCES
Patricia Okafor, the estate lawyer, moved carefully and correctly. The estate was being administered according to the will, with the house as the primary asset. As executor, she had access to my mother’s bank and financial records in order to establish the value of the estate and identify any debts or obligations.