Daniel didn’t know that my husband and I had planned for this exact scenario.
My husband had always been more thorough, more protective of me, than that.
I remembered the night months before his death, when my husband asked me to sit with him in the living room. The lamp cast a soft glow as he held my hand and said, “I don’t want to believe Daniel would ever forget who raised him, but just in case he ever loses his way, I want you protected. Promise me you’ll keep this will private unless you need it.”
I promised.
We had rewritten the will. The original draft did indeed leave the house to Daniel, with the clause that I could stay until I passed. But something told my husband that Daniel might not honor that.
I let them settle in, unpack their fancy kitchen gadgets, and hang up their framed family portraits like they owned the place. Then I drove over late in the evening when I knew they would have finished a lot of unpacking.
With a calm smile, I knocked on the front door.
Daniel opened it, surprised to see me standing there in my green cardigan and holding a small envelope.
“Mom?”
I smiled sweetly. “Have you had time to unpack your things?”
He blinked. “Uh, yeah… we’ve been getting everything in order. What’s going on?”
I stepped past him and into the foyer, my eyes scanning the space that had once been mine. They’d hired people who had started painting over my soft yellow walls with a cold modern gray. Clearly, the plan to kick me out had been in motion since the reading of the will.
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