The scent of lavender and vanilla I’d loved so much had been replaced with a citrus air freshener.
“Good,” I said, then handed him the envelope. “You’ll want to read this.”
A woman holding an envelope | Source: Pexels
He frowned and opened it, pulling out a copy of the real will. His eyes moved back and forth rapidly, then widened.
“This… this isn’t what the lawyer read after the funeral?!”
“No,” I said, my voice firm. “That was a decoy. The real will, signed and notarized, leaves the house to me. Solely. You’re not entitled to a square inch of it.”
“Wait — Mom, hold on — Mary and I already —”
I held up a hand. “I don’t care what you and Mary did. Pack your things. Now.”
Daniel just stood there, gripping the will as if it might dissolve in his hands. His face had gone pale, lips parted in disbelief.
“Mom,” he said again, but this time it sounded like a plea. “We just moved in. The kids just got their rooms set up. We’ve already started changing the locks and everything. Are you really going to throw us out like this?”
I looked at him hard, searching for any trace of the boy I used to know, the one who once hand-carved a little wooden music box for me and painted it red because he said it was the color of love.
“You threw me out first,” I said quietly. “Without prior warning or compassion. You didn’t ask or check whether I really had anywhere to go. You just told me your wife needed more space and sent me packing. So yes, Daniel, I’m going to ask you to pack your things now.”
Behind him, Mary appeared in the hallway wearing one of my old aprons — the blue one with the daisies. She stared at me like I was a cockroach crawling up the wall.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
Daniel turned toward her and waved the will. “It’s not our house. It was never ours. The original will wasn’t the real one. Mom owns the house. We have to leave.”
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