It began as one of those unspoken family quirks everyone knows about but avoids addressing.
My husband’s affluent parents had a well-known habit of “forgetting” their wallets whenever dining out – a convenient lapse that left others paying for their lavish meals. I’d witnessed it more times than I could count.
So when they invited my mom to an upscale Italian restaurant for her birthday while my husband and I were away – I felt a knot of worry. I gently warned her what might happen, but she only smiled and said, “Sweetheart, it’s fine. I can handle myself.”