Angela wiped her tears and looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen in years. It wasn’t the look of a daughter who needs her mother, but the look of a grown woman who respects another woman. «Do you forgive me, Mom?»
«I forgave you a long time ago, honey. The question is, can you forgive yourself?»
«I don’t know if I can. I did unforgivable things.»
«People make mistakes, Angela. The important thing is what we do after we recognize those mistakes.»
Mr. Peterson left us alone in his office for a few minutes. Angela and I sat in silence, processing everything that had happened. «Mom, I want you to know something. Even if you didn’t have all this money, even if you were really the poor widow I thought you were, I would have learned the same lesson.»
«What lesson?»
«That there is nothing more valuable than having someone who loves you unconditionally. During these past few weeks, the only thing that kept me sane was knowing I had a home with you, that no matter how much I had ruined my life, you were still my mother.»
«That will never change, Angela.»
«I know, but I also know that I can never take that love for granted again. I have to earn it every day with respect, with gratitude, with actions, not just words.»
We left Mr. Peterson’s office with a completely new relationship. We were no longer mother and daughter united by blood and habit. We were two grown women who had chosen each other after going through the most difficult test.
The following weeks were about rebuilding, but not the kind Angela expected. Even though she now knew I had enough resources to solve all her problems, she decided to keep her night cleaning job. «Mom, I need to finish what I started,» she told me one afternoon as she was getting ready for work. «I can’t just go back to a comfortable life as if nothing happened.»
«Are you sure? You don’t have to punish yourself forever.»
«It’s not a punishment. It’s a way of remembering who I was and who I want to be now.»
I watched her put on her work uniform, something unthinkable a few months ago when she lived in the luxury condo with Edward. But there was something different in her posture, in the way she moved. She was no longer the broken woman who had arrived crying at my door. She was someone who had found dignity in honest work.
Aurora came to visit me that afternoon, as she had done every few days since Angela had returned. «Antonia, there are some very strange rumors going around the neighborhood.»
«What kind of rumors?»
«People are saying that you’re not as poor as we all thought. Someone saw Angela leaving a very elegant lawyer’s office downtown, and then they saw her paying off all her debts at the bank. People talk a lot, Aurora.»
«Yes, but they’re also saying you got your beach house back and that somehow you managed to solve all of Angela’s legal problems. That costs a lot of money, Antonia.»
Aurora knew me too well to fool her for long. «What do you want to know exactly?»
«I want to know if my friend of 40 years has been lying to me about her situation.»
I poured myself a cup of tea and sat across from her. It was time to be honest with someone else. «Robert left me more than anyone knew, Aurora. Much more.»
«How much more?»
«Enough so that Angela and I never have to worry about money again.»
Aurora was silent for a moment, processing the information. «And why did you pretend to be poor all these months?»
«Because I needed Angela to learn something she couldn’t learn any other way.»
I told her the whole story. Angela’s cruel phone call, my plan of silent revenge, the weeks of watching her hit rock bottom, and finally, the revelation in Mr. Peterson’s office. «Antonia, that is… that is brilliant and terrible at the same time.»
«Terrible?»
«Yes, because you let your own daughter suffer when you could have helped her immediately. But also brilliant, because I understand why you did it.»
«You do?»
«Yes, Angela needed to learn the value of the things she had lost. If you had simply given her money to solve her problems, she would have learned that there’s always someone who will rescue her from the consequences of her bad decisions.»
«Exactly.»
«But Antonia, didn’t it hurt you to see her suffer?»
«Every day. Every night I saw her crying. Every morning I saw her get up to go to work tired and defeated. But I knew that if I rescued her too soon, she wouldn’t have learned the full lesson.»
«And do you think she learned it?»
«Look for yourself. Angela knows that she now has access to enough money to live comfortably, but she chose to keep her job. She knows she can move to a better place, but she decided to stay here with me. She knows she doesn’t have to worry about the debts, but she’s using her own savings to help other women in similar situations.»
«She’s helping other women?»
«Yes. She became friends with the ladies she works with and is using some of the money she earned cleaning offices to help a co-worker who is having trouble paying for her son’s daycare.»
Aurora smiled. «That’s not the Angela who went to Europe.»
«No, she’s not. This Angela understands that money is a tool, not a goal. She understands that dignity comes from work and respect, not from material possessions.»
That night, when Angela returned from work, she found me reading in the living room. «Mom, I have to tell you something. Today, Mrs. Johnson asked me if I was the daughter of the rich lady from the north side of town.»
«What did you tell her?»
«I said yes, that you have enough money for me not to have to work. And do you know what she asked me next?»
«What?»
«She asked me why I was still working. So I explained that it was because I need to prove to myself that I can stand on my own two feet.»
«And what did she say?»
«She laughed and said, ‘Honey, that’s the difference between being rich and acting rich. Your mom taught you how to be truly rich.'»
«Mrs. Johnson is very wise.»
«She is. And she made me understand something important. It’s not about the money you have, but about how you use it and how you relate to it.»
Angela sat down with me on the sofa. «Mom, I want you to know that I’ve made a decision. I’m going to keep living here with you, but not as a daughter who has come back home to her parents. I want to stay here as a grown woman who chooses to share her life with her mother.»
«What’s the difference?»
«The difference is that I’m going to pay my share of the expenses. I’m going to contribute to the upkeep of the house, and I’m going to treat this relationship as a partnership between two independent women who love and respect each other.»
«Angela, you don’t need to…»
«Yes, I do, Mom. I need our relationship to be different from what it was before. Before, I was a daughter who took her mother’s love and care for granted. Now, I want to be a grown woman who values and takes care of the most important relationship in her life.»
«And your job?»
«I’m going to keep working, but not necessarily cleaning offices forever. I want to go back to school. I want to prepare myself to do something more meaningful with my life, but I want to do it step by step, earning every opportunity.»
«Do you have any idea what you want to study?»
«Yes. I want to study social work. These past few weeks have taught me how many people are going through difficult situations without having anyone to support them. I want to use the resources we have to help other women who are going through what I went through.»
It was perfect. Angela had not only learned to value what she had, but she had found a way to use her experience for something constructive. «And what about Edward?»
«Mr. Peterson told me he was arrested in France for the fraudulent marriage. He’s going to be deported soon, but honestly, Mom, I don’t care anymore. That part of my life is over.»
«You don’t feel any resentment?»
«No. Edward did me a favor without even knowing it. If he hadn’t abandoned and betrayed me, I never would have hit rock bottom. And if I had never hit rock bottom, I never would have learned to truly value what I have.»
That night, for the first time in months, I went to bed completely at peace. My plan had worked perfectly. Angela had not only learned the lessons she needed to learn, but she had emerged from the experience as a stronger, wiser, and more compassionate person. Robert would have been so proud.
Six months later, our life had found a new balance that neither of us could have imagined before. Angela finished her social work studies with excellent grades, and I decided to use some of my resources to establish a foundation to help women in situations of domestic violence and financial abandonment.
«Mom, the letter from the university arrived,» Angela said one morning, coming into the kitchen with an envelope in her hands. «I was accepted into the master’s program. I start next semester. But Mom, I want you to know I’m going to pay for it with my own savings. I’ve been saving money from my job at the city.»
The salary isn’t high, but she had learned to live with the essentials and to value every dollar she earned. «Are you sure? We can easily afford the master’s program.»
«I know, but I need to do it on my own. It’s part of who I am now.»
Aurora came to visit that afternoon as she had done every Friday for the past few months. She had become a confidant to both of us, watching our transformation with fascination. «Antonia, I have to confess something,» she said, pouring herself a second cup of tea. «At first, I thought you were very cruel to Angela.»
«And what do you think now?»
«Now I think you were the wisest mother I’ve ever known. Look at your daughter. Really look at her.»
It was true. The Angela who was in the living room studying for her exams was completely different from the one who had left for Europe months ago. This Angela had a serenity that came from within, a confidence that was based on her own achievements, not on material possessions.
