My name is Lorraine Whitmore. I’m 63 years old, and for nearly a decade I’ve been a widow. After my husband Arthur died, our two-story house in a quiet Savannah suburb became my only refuge.
Over time, it became my son Mason’s refuge too, and then his beautiful but sharp-tongued wife Belle’s.
Seven years ago, when Mason lost his job and Belle was pregnant with their first child, they showed up at my door in the middle of a fall storm begging for help.
Last week, they won eighty-five million dollars in the Georgia state lottery.
But instead of gratitude for the seven years of shelter I’d given them, by noon that same day my daughter-in-law had cruelly thrown my belongings out the upstairs window—china shattering across the street—while she stood on my porch and screamed, “We don’t need to do charity for you anymore! Go die old in a nursing home!”
I stood in the yard, clothes dusty and rumpled, my heartbeat strangely steady.
Neighbors were peeking through blinds along our quiet Savannah cul-de-sac, the American flags on their porches barely stirring in the heavy air.
I quietly bent down, picked up a cracked picture frame, brushed the dust off with my sleeve, then looked up at my daughter-in-law. “Did you read the name on the back of the ticket?” I asked.
Her triumphant smile froze for a split second—a tiny crack in her perfect façade.
She didn’t know it yet, but that one question would be the thread that unraveled her glittering little world for good.
Part 1: The Invisible Woman in Her Own Home
I’m Lorraine Whitmore, sixty-three, a widow for nearly a decade. After Arthur died, the two-story house in a Savannah suburb became my sanctuary and my prison all at once.
Over time it became my son Mason’s refuge too, and then his wife Belle’s—though she never saw it as a refuge, only as a stepping stone she was forced to stand on while waiting for something better. Seven years ago, when Mason lost his job and Belle was pregnant with their first child, they knocked on my door in the middle of a fall storm.
The wind was howling down our street, rain blowing sideways past the mailbox with its faded little Stars and Stripes sticker.
Mason stood on the porch drenched, gripping a battered suitcase.
Behind him, Belle’s mascara had streaked, her eyes swollen and red. “Mom, we lost the apartment,” he said, his voice breaking.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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