Okay so I’m gonna sound totally bonkers and maybe I AM bonkers, I dunno, sometimes I just feel like… what is even the POINT, you know? Anyway, this is about my Nana. My grandma. She’s like 80 something, maybe 83? She lives down the road a piece, past the old Peters farm where the goats got out that one time and Mrs. Peters blamed it on the Johnson kids even though it was obviously her fence but that’s a whole other thing. So Nana, she gets a little allowance from me and my sister and our cousin Ricky, just enough to cover her bills and a bit extra for groceries, maybe a new pair of house shoes if hers get too worn (she wears them till they’re practically just felt, it’s kinda sad honestly). We all chip in, it’s what you DO around here, you take care of your elders, right? It’s not like she’s got a big pension or anything, just what her and Grandpa saved before he passed and that was… not a lot. My parents are always saying how it’s a SACRIFICE, which it is, totally, I get it, but she needs it. The thing is, I found out she won the lottery. Not like, Mega Millions big, but like… a few thousand. Enough to make a real difference, enough so she wouldn't NEED our little contributions every week. And she hid it. In a book. A HOLLOWED OUT BOOK. Like in a movie! It was that old copy of "Gone With The Wind" she's had forever, the one with the really faded cover. I only found it because I was helping her clean out her old shed (it was a MESS, full of rusty tools and old canning jars, smelled like damp earth and mice) and she asked me to move some books from her living room so we could put in that new little end table my sister got her (which honestly is kinda cheap looking but she loves it so whatever). And I picked up the book and it was WAY too light and I opened it up and there it was. A wad of cash. And the little slip from the gas station, dated like two months ago. She was so flustered, tried to pretend it was just a receipt, but I saw the amount. Anyone else have family members who… just keep secrets for no good reason? Like, what does she think we're going to DO? Am I the only one who thinks this is just… WEIRD? She looked at me all wide-eyed like a deer caught in headlights, and then she mumbled something about not wanting to be a "burden" and how she didn't want us to "worry" and how she didn't want us to stop helping her. Which means she thinks we'd STOP if she had her own money. Like, is that what she really thinks of us? That we’d just cut her off? (It kinda stung, not gonna lie.) I mean, it’s not like we're rolling in it ourselves, my car needs new tires and my fridge is making a weird humming noise that sounds like a sick cat, but we make sure Nana is taken care of. Does she think we’re just in it for… what? The satisfaction? The community points? I didn’t say anything, just put the book back, pretended I didn’t see. But it’s been bugging me ever since. Does she just not trust us? Or does she actually think we’re that shallow? It makes me wonder about EVERYTHING, you know? Like, what else is she hiding? And why? It’s just… a lot.