I stared at that message for a long, long moment, the little gray bubble glowing against a dark screen like it was nothing, like it was just another reminder in a long chain of reminders. For years, “It’s time to pay the mortgage” had been our unspoken code for “We’re drowning again. Come save us.”
This time, I didn’t feel my stomach drop or my pulse spike.
I just felt… empty.
Like a switch had flipped inside me and the current was finally cut. I paid their mortgage.
I paid their meds. And then I found out they left me nothing, not even the damn china cabinet.
That sentence has played on repeat in my mind like a scratched record, skipping over and over the same bitter beat.
I used to laugh at people who said life could flip in an instant, but I wasn’t laughing the day I sat in my parents’ lawyer’s office, staring at the ugliest truth I’d ever seen spelled out in black ink. The office itself was one of those places designed to look comforting: thick carpet, framed prints of sailboats and lakes, a bowl of complimentary mints sweating under the lamplight. It smelled faintly of lemon polish and old paper.
The lawyer, a man in his late fifties with kind eyes and a tie covered in tiny anchors, adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat like he was about to deliver bad news about a stranger.
Except the stranger was me. “Your parents updated their will last year,” he said gently, sliding the document across the desk.
“They wanted to simplify things.”
Simplify. That word still makes my jaw tighten.
I scanned the pages, my eyes skipping over the legal jargon until they landed on the only part that mattered:
To our beloved son, Todd, we leave our home, our vehicles, our savings, and all remaining assets.
There was more, but my brain blurred it out. There was no “and to our daughter.” No mention of me. No percentage, no token sum, not even a line about sentimental items.
After everything I did for them, after every unpaid hour I spent keeping their heads above water, they gave it all to my brother, Todd.
Of course it was Todd. I handed the papers back and the lawyer watched my face like he was waiting for tears, a breakdown, some visible proof that I understood the gravity of what I was reading.
I felt the muscles in my cheeks go stiff, like my skin had turned to porcelain. “Are you all right?” he asked.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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