Mom had told me the forms were necessary because the old account had been compromised.
I had been exhausted.
I trusted her.
Naomi begged for money.
Just enough to see a specialist in Atlanta.
Mom refused.
Kendra accused her of inventing symptoms because she wanted attention from me.
Then Naomi tried to contact me directly.
That was when things became worse.
Her phone disappeared.
Mom later told me it had broken.
Her laptop password suddenly stopped working.
Letters she wrote to my unit never reached me.
Eventually, Naomi realized she was completely isolated.
“So how did you get diagnosed?”
She touched her scarf.
That was when I understood.
Naomi had always had beautiful hair.
Thick, dark brown hair that fell nearly to her waist.
One morning, while Mom and Kendra were shopping, she locked herself in the bathroom and cut it off.
All of it.
She found a salon that purchased untreated human hair for custom wigs.
They paid her $420.
She used part of it for a bus ticket.
The rest went toward an imaging appointment at a low-cost clinic.
The clinic found something suspicious.
A charity program eventually helped arrange the biopsy.
Cancer.
Advanced.
My wife had sold her hair to find out whether she was dying while I had been sending thousands of dollars into the same house every month.
“Why are you living in this shed?”
She wiped her face.
“After I started getting treatment, I became sick a lot. Your mother said I was upsetting guests.”
My hands curled into fists.
“She said the smell of medicine made the bedrooms unpleasant.”
I stood up.
Naomi grabbed my wrist.
“Caleb, don’t.”
I looked down at her.
“You think I’m going to let this continue?”
“You don’t understand. They’ve been telling people I’m unstable. Your mother told everyone I spent your money. If you explode right now, she’ll make you look like the crazy soldier who came back angry.”
She was right.
And I hated that she was right.
I sat down again.
“Did they take all the money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have proof?”
Her eyes shifted toward an old storage cabinet.
Inside was a grocery bag filled with envelopes.
Medical statements.
Bank notices.
Copies of denied payment requests.
One letter showed that Mom had transferred $18,000 into a personal account.
Another showed nearly $11,000 paid to a vehicle dealership.
