Chapter 5 - PAIGE THOUGHT I HAD AGREED TO EVERYTHING
Paige met me at my attorney’s office.
She walked in crying.
“I am so sorry.”
I did not answer immediately.
Paige had always been the quieter Bell sister.
Thirty-eight.
Elementary-school counselor.
Divorced.
No children.
Lauren once told me Paige would “steal a baby if somebody left one unattended.”
I used to think it was a joke.
Now every joke felt suspicious.
“What did they tell you?”
Paige opened her phone.
Messages from Lauren.
EVAN AND I TALKED.
HE KNOWS I CAN’T DO THIS LONG-TERM.
Then:
AFTER THE TRUST CLEARS, YOU TAKE EMMA FOR SIX MONTHS.
Later:
IF IT WORKS, MAYBE LONGER.
Paige replied:
ARE YOU SURE EVAN AGREES?
Lauren:
YES.
Then Lauren sent a screenshot.
Supposedly from me.
THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS. EMMA WILL BE BETTER WITH SOMEONE WHO REALLY WANTS TO BE A FULL-TIME PARENT.
I stared.
“I never wrote that.”
“I know now.”
Paige covered her face.
“I thought you were ashamed to tell me directly.”
More messages.
Paige repeatedly asked about legal paperwork.
Lauren said Judith’s attorney would handle everything.
Then one message from two months before the birth:
DAY 91. THAT’S ALL I NEED.
Paige:
WHY 91?
Lauren:
TRUST.
There it was.
No ambiguity.
Paige knew money was involved.
“But I thought the money was for Emma,” she said.
“Apparently Lauren didn’t.”
Paige started crying again.
Then she handed my attorney an email.
Sent by Judith.
Subject:
POST-90-DAY FAMILY PLAN.
Judith proposed paying Paige $500,000 from Lauren’s distribution.
Not to “buy” Emma.
The language called it family-care support.
But the effect was clear.
Paige would become long-term caregiver.
Lauren would leave for Arizona.
I would supposedly maintain weekend contact.
Except I had approved none of it.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Paige whispered:
“Mom said you were embarrassed.”
The Bell family had built an entire plan around my fictional consent.
Then my attorney asked the most important question.
“What happened to the $900,000 advance?”
Paige looked confused.
“What advance?”
She knew nothing.
We traced what we could.
$220,000 went toward Lauren’s private loan balances.
$48,000 Arizona deposit.
$75,000 to Judith.
Then:
$310,000 to Bell Aesthetics Holdings.
Judith’s company.
I stared.
May you like
My mother-in-law had personally received hundreds of thousands of dollars from money borrowed against Lauren’s future childbirth-triggered inheritance.
And suddenly Judith’s role looked far less maternal.
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