Julian’s mother, Beatrice, was a woman who draped herself in the faded glory of old money she didn’t possess. She openly despised me. To Beatrice, I was a mere “tradeswoman,” a glorified contractor with dirty hands, while her son was a generational prodigy. She had spent my marriage boasting to her country club friends about Julian’s imaginary fortunes.
Last week, when Beatrice came to my penthouse to “supervise” the movers packing up Julian’s miserable collection of avant-garde jackets, she must have slipped into my home office. She hadn’t stolen a physical credit card. She had stolen my old backup iPad, the one permanently logged into my Aura VIP Concierge app with a master payment token attached.
My hands trembled, not from sorrow, but from a sheer, volcanic rage. The audacity was breathtaking. She hadn’t just stolen money; she had stolen my identity to fund a fantasy.