In The Court, My Dad Declared She Has Lost Her Mind, Until The Judge Leaned Forward And…
“She is mentally unfit to manage her own affairs, your honor. She is confused, erratic, and a danger to herself.”
My father didn’t even blink as he lied to the judge. He wiped a fake tear with the back of his hand, the kind of gesture he’d perfected over decades, then glanced at the relatives he’d invited to watch my humiliation like this was theater and he was proud of the turnout.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t object. I didn’t even inhale sharply the way my aunts always did when they wanted to look scandalized.
I just checked my watch. Three minutes. That was all the time he had left before his entire world imploded.
Be honest. Have you ever had someone look you in the eye and lie about you to make themselves look like the victim? Drop a yes in the comments if you know exactly how that feels.
I want to see how many of us have survived this. Walter sat down, smoothing his tie like he’d just delivered a eulogy. The silence in the courtroom was heavy, thick with the judgment of the aunts and cousins he’d packed into the back rows.
They were waiting for the breakdown. They were waiting for Rati—the 29-year-old failure, the disappointment, the confused child—to start screaming or begging for mercy. But I didn’t move.
I didn’t blink. I just sat there breathing in the stale air of the probate court, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable for everyone but me. There’s a specific smell in probate court that nobody warns you about.
It’s old carpet, stale coffee, and paper that’s been handled by too many anxious hands. It’s grief, too, but grief filed into neat stacks, stamped and stapled, turned into an inventory of what someone left behind. My grandmother’s estate was supposed to be the last piece of her that couldn’t be rewritten.
She loved structure. She loved clarity. She used to say money is like water—if you don’t contain it, it leaks into the wrong hands.
Walter had spent his entire life proving her to be right. “Miss Rati,” Judge Morrison said, looking over her glasses. “Your father has made some very serious allegations regarding your mental capacity and your handling of the estate.
Do you have a response?”
Walter leaned forward, a predator smelling blood. He wanted the outburst. He needed me to prove him right by acting hysterical.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
