I walked into a luxury restaurant looking broke—because my own son asked me to, and the moment I stepped past the valet stand and those warm downtown lights, I felt it: the kind of silence that isn’t quiet… it’s calculating. My son, Marcus, is 35. He thinks I’m “simple.” A little office job. A modest apartment. The same old handbag. The kind of mom who shops sale racks and says, “I’m fine,” even when she isn’t. What he doesn’t know is I’ve been making $40,000 a month for years. I just never told