Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE THEY BOUGHT WITH MOM’S MONEY
Lisa started crying before Dad did.
Not emotional tears.
Panicked tears.
“I didn’t know where the money came from.”
I looked at her.
“You expected me to believe that?”
“It’s true!”
Dad grabbed her arm.
“Stop.”
She pulled away.
“You told me it came from an investment account!”
“It did.”
“Whose?”
He said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Mr. Bennett explained what Mom had uncovered.
L&R Property Group had purchased a lakefront property ninety minutes outside the city.
Four bedrooms.
Private dock.
Renovated kitchen.
The exact kind of house Lisa used to talk about wanting.
They had bought it eleven weeks before Mom died.
Dad had even ordered furniture.
Mom was still undergoing chemotherapy.
Still sleeping upstairs.
Still thanking her husband and sister for “taking care of her.”
And while she was doing that, the two people closest to her were furnishing the home they intended to share after she died.
My hands shook so badly that I had to set the folder down.
Lisa whispered:
“Richard told me Evelyn wanted to simplify the accounts.”
That sentence nearly broke something inside me.
“You visited her every week.”
Lisa looked down.
“You sat beside her bed.”
No answer.
“You brought her soup.”
Her shoulders trembled.
“And then you drove to a house you were buying with her money?”
“I loved her.”
I laughed once.
It sounded terrible.
“No. You loved what you thought you were getting when she died.”
Guests began leaving.
Some stopped to hug me.
Others walked past Dad and Lisa without saying a word.
Their wedding cake still stood untouched.
Their first dance never happened.
Their champagne went warm.
Everything they had built around the story of two grieving people finding love was collapsing in real time.
Then my cousin Hannah approached me.
She looked pale.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
She glanced toward Lisa.
“Aunt Lisa asked me a strange question at the funeral.”
My stomach tightened.
“What question?”
“She asked whether your mom had told me where she kept the original copy of her will.”
I slowly turned toward Lisa.
She had heard.
Her face froze.
Hannah continued.
“I thought it was weird. But then she said Richard couldn’t find it.”
Mr. Bennett immediately looked at my father.
“Why were you looking for Evelyn’s original will?”
Dad crossed his arms.
“I wasn’t.”
Lisa suddenly shouted:
“Yes, you were!”
Everyone turned.
She looked at him in disbelief.
“You tore apart her desk the night after the funeral!”
Dad lunged toward her.
Mr. Bennett stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Lisa was crying harder now.
“He said there had to be another will.”
Another will?
Mr. Bennett looked at me.
“There was.”
My heart stopped.
Dad stared at him.
“You told me Evelyn had a trust.”
“She did.”
“And a will.”
“Yes.”
“What was in it?”
Mr. Bennett’s expression changed.
“That depends on which version you’re asking about.”
The room seemed to shrink.
He turned toward me.
“Your mother signed a new will forty-eight hours before she died.”
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And according to him...
Dad had never seen it.
