Chapter 5 - The Ledger of Favoritism
Two days passed in relative quiet. I blocked Donna’s phone number. I left Richard unblocked on text only, in case of an actual medical emergency, but muted his alerts.
On Tuesday evening, the doorbell rang.
Sarah and I exchanged a tense glance. Lily was upstairs finishing her bath. I walked to the entryway, checked the peephole, and was surprised to see Michelle standing on the porch alone.
I opened the door. “Michelle?”
She was holding a manila folder against her coat. “Hey, Derek. Can I come in for ten minutes? Scott’s home with Mason.”
“Sure,” I said, stepping aside.
Sarah came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Michelle, everything okay?”
Michelle didn’t sit down. She placed the manila folder on the dining room table, her expression deeply conflicted. “I wrestled with this for forty-eight hours. Scott told me to stay out of it. He said it would only make things worse. But watching what happened Saturday... watching Mason realize that his cousin was being treated like dirt... I couldn’t stomach it anymore.”
“What is that?” I asked, looking at the folder.
“You know Grandma Evelyn left an estate when she passed four years ago,” Michelle said.
Evelyn was my mother’s mother—a stern, sharp-witted woman who had lived in Vermont. When she died, Donna had handled the estate as executor. At the time, Donna had told me and Scott that Grandma Evelyn had left ten thousand dollars for each of the great-grandchildren’s college funds, to be held in trust accounts managed by Donna until they turned eighteen.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Lily’s college fund. Mom told us she set up the account.”
Michelle slid the folder toward me. “She set up Mason’s account. But she didn’t set up Lily’s.”
Sarah gasped. I felt a cold rush of blood hammer in my ears. I pulled open the folder.
Inside were copies of probate documents, bank statements, and email correspondence between Donna and the estate lawyer. Grandma Evelyn hadn’t left ten thousand dollars per great-grandchild. She had left twenty-five thousand dollars each.
Donna had taken Mason’s twenty-five thousand and put it into a high-yield index fund under Scott and Michelle’s names.
Lily’s twenty-five thousand? It had been quietly absorbed into Donna’s personal checking account four years ago. A subsequent bank statement showed a wire transfer of nearly that exact amount to pay off the remaining balance on Donna’s luxury crossover vehicle.
“How did you get this?” Sarah whispered, her face pale with fury.
“Evelyn’s lawyer reached out to Scott last year because Donna was dodging some final closing signatures for the estate,” Michelle explained, her eyes filled with shame. “Scott kept the paperwork in his home office file cabinet. He confronted Donna back then. She told him that Derek and Sarah ‘had plenty of money’ and that she needed the car to drive Mason to his activities, and that she would ‘pay it back later.’ Scott let it go. He didn’t want to cause a fight.”
I gripped the edge of the table so hard my knuckles turned white.
It wasn't just small slights, petty comments, and birthday cakes. It was systematic, cold-blooded theft. Donna hadn’t just preferred Mason; she had literally stolen my daughter’s future security to buy herself a new car, while Scott had stood by and silently allowed it to happen to preserve the peace.
“Scott knows you’re here?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.
“He knows I left the house with the folder,” Michelle said quietly. “He didn’t try to stop me. Derek, I love my husband, but this family is sick. Mason started asking me on Sunday why Nana doesn't love Lily. My eight-year-old son is carrying guilt for things he didn't do. I won't raise my boy in this toxicity. If this burns the house down, then let it burn.”
I looked at Michelle, seeing an ally where I had least expected one.
“Thank you, Michelle,” I said, closing the folder. “You did the right thing.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked, looking at the documents.
May you like
I picked up the folder, feeling the weight of four years of deceit resting in my hands. “I’m calling a lawyer tomorrow morning. And then I’m going to see my brother.”
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