Chapter 7
The next morning, Diane acted like nothing had happened.
She made pancakes, laughed with the kids, asked Michael how his meeting was going.
She didn’t even glance at me when I walked into the kitchen.
Like our late-night standoff had never happened.
Michael didn’t mention our fight either.
He just kissed Diane on the cheek, told her he’d be home late, and left for work.
As soon as the front door closed, Diane turned to me.
Her sweet smile was gone.
Her face was hard, cold, triumphant.
“He doesn’t believe you,” she said, leaning against the counter, crossing her arms. “Does he?”
I stared at her, my hands shaking.
“What are you planning, Diane?” I asked. “What papers? What are you going to do to us?”
She laughed, a low, nasty sound.
“Robert’s house,” she said. “The one you and Michael live in now. Did you know he never actually transferred the deed to Michael? He put it in a trust. A trust that says I get fifty percent if I can prove I was a good wife and mother. And if I can prove Linda manipulated him into writing that letter and those journals? I get the whole thing. And you two get nothing. You’ll be out on the street with your brats before you know what hit you.”
My stomach dropped.
“The trust was probated twenty years ago,” I said. “Michael owns this house free and clear.”
“Did you check?” she asked, smirking. “Did you actually read the trust documents? Or did you just take Michael’s word for it? Robert was a smart man. He made sure there were loopholes. Loopholes only I knew about. Loopholes my lawyer is already exploiting.”
She stepped closer to me, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“The suicide attempt was fake, by the way. The pills were just vitamin C. I stole the empty bottle from Karen’s medicine cabinet. The doctors never even tested my blood. They just took my word for it. And Michael? He ate it up. Just like he’s eating up this whole ‘reformed mom’ act. He’s so desperate for a normal family, he’ll believe anything I tell him. Even if it means throwing you and your trashy mom under the bus.”
I wanted to slap her.
I wanted to scream, to call the cops, to tell Michael everything.
But I knew she was right.
Michael wouldn’t believe me.
Not without proof.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm.
“You’re going to slip up,” I said. “Sooner or later, you’re going to make a mistake. And when you do, I’ll be there. I’ll take you down. And you’ll never see my kids again.”
Diane laughed again.
“I’d like to see you try,” she said.
She turned and walked out of the kitchen, humming to herself, like we’d just been talking about the weather.
I spent the rest of the day digging through our filing cabinet in the basement, looking for the trust documents.
I found them in the back, buried under old tax returns.
My hands shook as I read them.
Diane was right.
Robert had put the house in a revocable living trust.
The deed had never been transferred to Michael.
It was still in the trust’s name.
And buried on page seventeen, in tiny, fine print, was the clause she’d mentioned.
If Diane could prove that Robert’s final wishes had been influenced by “undue influence or coercion from a third party” — meaning my mom — she was entitled to fifty percent of the estate.
And if she could prove the journals and the letter were forgeries?
One hundred percent.
I felt sick.
We’d lived in this house for eight years.
We’d put every penny we had into renovations, into the kids’ rooms, into making it ours.
And Diane could take it all away.
Just like that.
I called my mom, panicking, reading her the clause over the phone.
She was quiet for a long time.
“Robert’s old lawyer, Mr. Grady, is still in town,” she said finally. “He drew up the trust. He knows all the loopholes. He knows what Robert really wanted. We go see him tomorrow. First thing.”
The next morning, we went to Mr. Grady’s office.
He was an old man, in his eighties, with white hair and a limp.
He remembered Robert well.
We showed him the clause Diane was exploiting.
He sighed, adjusting his glasses.
“I told Robert not to put that in,” he said. “I told him Diane would find a way to use it against him. But he was soft. He said he wanted to give her one last chance, if she ever changed. I should’ve fought him harder.”
“Can she win?” I asked, my voice tight.
Mr. Grady nodded slowly.
“Unfortunately, yes. The clause is ironclad. If she can produce any evidence that Linda influenced Robert in his final days — even that stupid photo — a judge could rule in her favor. She could take the house. She could even take the rest of Robert’s estate. The cars, the savings, everything.”
“Is there anything we can do?” my mom asked.
Mr. Grady leaned back in his chair, thinking.
“Robert changed the trust three days before he died,” he said. “He added a codicil. A last-minute addition. It says that if Diane ever challenges the trust, or makes any claim against the estate based on undue influence, she automatically forfeits all rights to anything. She gets nothing. Zero. Nada.”
My heart leaped.
“Why didn’t we know about this?” I asked.
“Because Robert told me to keep it secret,” he said. “He said if Diane knew about it, she’d never show her true colors. He wanted her to make a move. So he could cut her off completely, once and for all. I have the original codicil in my safe. Signed, dated, witnessed by two people. It’s completely legal. It overrides every other clause in the trust.”
I almost cried with relief.
“So if she sues us,” I said. “She loses everything.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Grady said. “But there’s a catch. We can’t just show it to her. We have to wait until she officially files her claim. Until then, it’s invalid. We have to let her make the first move. We have to let her think she’s winning. Then, when she least expects it, we drop the codicil on her. Game over.”
We left Mr. Grady’s office feeling lighter than we had in weeks.
All we had to do was wait.
Wait for Diane to make her move.
But as we drove home, my phone buzzed.
It was an email from our mortgage company.
Subject: NOTICE OF TRUSTEE SALE.
I opened it, my blood running cold.
May you like
Diane had already filed her claim.
And the house was scheduled to be auctioned off in thirty days.
