When I lost both of my parents, my heart was devastated forever. It made me different. One week, I was 19 years old and stressed about academic deadlines.
The next thing I knew, I was in a sterile hospital hallway with a cup of cold coffee in my hand. Someone told me, “You have no family left.”
I didn’t feel sad all at once. It went slowly between the empty chairs, the shampoo bottles that were only half full, and the voices that would never come back.
I watered Mom’s peace flower, fed our cat, and tried to act like things weren’t completely falling apart. But I wasn’t ready for the will reading. To try to look calm, I put on Mom’s navy jacket.
My dad’s older sister, Aunt Dina, sat across from me. When my parents were alive, she didn’t come to see us very often. She smiled like she knew something I didn’t.
He read the papers in a cold voice: “Ms. Dina gets the estate and property according to your parents’ will.”
I blinked. “That’s not going to happen.”
Dina smiled and leaned back.
“Your parents probably knew who could handle it.”
I felt sick to my stomach. The lawyer agreed that the document appeared legitimate. A few days later, Dina arrived to the house with champagne and told me I had 24 hours to depart.
I was in shock, surrounded by the ghosts of my parents’ lives. I held the peace flower like it could somehow protect me. The next morning, I was outside with two suitcases and no idea where to go when a black limo showed up.
The driver opened the door, and a man in a gray suit who was very tall got out. “Rachel?” he said. It took me a minute.
“Uncle Mike?”
My dad’s younger brother had been missing for years after a quarrel in the family. He offered me his phone and showed me a Facebook post. Dina was outside my house with a glass of champagne and sunglasses on.
The words under the picture say, “New beginnings.” I’m finally obtaining what I was meant to have. Mike let out a sigh. “Your dad would have hated this.” So I started to dig.
A few minutes later, two police cars drew up next to his limo. My heart raced. Mike seemed calm.
“Stay close.” You’re going to get your house back soon. We walked to the door. Dina opened it with her usual sense of superiority.
“Hey, look who’s back,” she said. Mike stayed still. He handed her a folder.
“This shows that you made up the will.” The lawyer you hired isn’t real, the signature was faked, and all the money comes from your account. Her face went pale. “You can’t prove that!”
“Oh, but we already did,” Mike said as the cops got closer.
Dina’s pride went apart. They put handcuffs on her and hauled her away. She yelled as her drink spilled all over her red outfit.
Mike stared at me. “You’re not alone anymore, kid.”
Three months later, the truth came out in court. The first will I wrote gave me everything.
The judge called what Dina done “a shocking act of betrayal.” She lost everything: her freedom, her name, and the family she had sought to trick. I returned home. At first, it seemed too quiet.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇
