Dear Prudence,
I went to Thanksgiving dinner at my ex-husband’s, along with my mother, because this was his year to have our two boys, ages 7 and 9, with him for the holiday, but we wanted to have the family together for them all the same. My mother is 70, and she carries a purse the size of a small suitcase wherever she goes. When we left, I was putting it in the trunk of my car and noticed it felt unusually heavy. I made a joke about her having enough stuff in there to survive for a month on a desert island, but didn’t think anything of it.
When we got home (my mother has mobility issues and lives with me), it was then that I discovered the reason why her purse was so heavy: She had pilfered a bottle of expensive cognac from my ex’s bar! When I confronted her, she said he had several of them and wouldn’t miss it, plus she saw nothing wrong “with a little compensation” for him breaking up the marriage. I am horrified and humiliated by my mother’s actions. My ex and I are finally on cordial terms, and I am afraid that if this comes to light, our relationship will be torpedoed. Based on that, would it be OK to look the other way in this one instance?
—Mortified by Mom’s Sticky Fingers