When I Sent Mom 100k, Stepdaughter Left Her $3.8

After my mother Magnolia Westbrook remarried, I sent her a hundred thousand dollars every month for living expenses. I even arranged a job for her late-life partner Richard Dalton's daughter as my husband's secretary. One weekend, my mother came to visit wearing a sweater riddled with holes. At first, I thought she was simply being frugal, but when I checked her bank account, the balance was just three dollars and eighty cents. I pressed her. "Mom, did someone scam you into buying health supplements? Or did you invest it somewhere?" She hemmed and hawed, refusing to answer. I was about to call Richard's daughter to find out what was going on when my mother suddenly grabbed my hand, her eyes reddening. "Don't call Chloe. It's me. I'm old and useless now. I just can't figure out that going-Dutch thing..." "Going Dutch? What do you mean?" I froze. She lowered her head, her voice growing softer and softer. "Chloe said her family has a tradition of going Dutch, where everything in the house, from food to drinks to household items, gets split evenly. She said it's only fair that way." I took a deep breath and pushed down the surge of emotion. "How much are we talking per month?" My mother hesitated. Her voice barely above a whisper, "Around a hundred thousand or so." A hundred grand a month? My brain short-circuited. What kind of household went through that much every month? Just then, her phone buzzed. I took it from her. It was a group chat called "Household Split Group." Chloe Dalton had sent a screenshot of an order for a rowing machine priced at sixteen thousand eight hundred dollars. Chloe: Magnolia, this is for the living room so everyone can exercise. Since it's in the common area, your half is 8,400. I stared at the screen, my fingers trembling. My mother has a herniated lumbar disc, and her doctor explicitly forbade strenuous exercise. Yet Chloe wanted her to split the cost of a rowing machine. I scrolled up. The further I went, the angrier I became. An imported seafood gift box listed at three thousand eight hundred dollars, my mother's half was one thousand nine hundred dollars. One king crab, two thousand eight hundred dollars, her half was one thousand four hundred dollars. An imported cherry gift box, nine hundred eighty dollars, her half was four hundred ninety dollars. My hands shook so badly I could barely hold the phone. My mother has gout, so she can't eat seafood. She has high blood sugar, so she can't eat cherries. Not a single one of these things was something she could eat, use, or even touch. I opened a shopping app to check the prices: the seafood gift box was one thousand two hundred eighty dollars on the official website, the king crab eight hundred eighty dollars, and the cherries three hundred ninety-nine dollars. Every item had been marked up to more than double. I understood everything. This was not going Dutch; this was making my mother foot the bill while Chloe pocketed the difference. I held the phone up to my mother. "Mom, did you tell her you can't eat any of this stuff?" She glanced at the screen. "I told her," she said quietly. "She said not to be difficult and that they couldn't accommodate just one person." My voice shook with rage. "She bought all of it for herself and made you pay half, at double the price!" My mother's eyes welled with tears. "I thought that was what going Dutch meant..." "Mom, how much has she made you pay over these three months?" She lowered her head and did the math. Her voice grew even quieter. "Around three hundred thousand or so." Every month I gave her a hundred grand, yet she wouldn't even buy herself a new sweater. She came to see me in one full of holes. And all that money had gone straight into Chloe's pocket. I opened Chloe's i********: feed and saw the seafood feasts, the cherry hauls, and the workout gear she flaunted, all of which had been paid for by my mother. I put the phone down, seething. "Mom," I said, my voice cold and steady. "We're not letting this slide."