I didn’t argue.
I didn’t confront him.
I barely reacted at all.
But the next morning, during the reading of Dad’s will, his attorney placed my father’s old phone in the center of the table and tapped the screen.
Six seconds later, my husband jumped to his feet.
“Turn that off!”
My father had barely been laid to rest, and Ethan was already deciding how his money would be spent.
As we stood beside Dad’s coffin beneath a dull gray sky, Ethan bent close enough that no one else could hear him.
“At least the inheritance can finally take care of some of this family’s problems.”
I kept staring at the casket.
Something inside me went completely quiet.
A few feet away, Ethan’s mother, Marjorie, dabbed a lace handkerchief beneath perfectly dry eyes.
She had made one of the biggest performances of grief during the service, which was almost laughable considering she had once called my father “a stubborn old mechanic who owned more land than he deserved.”
Now she stood beneath the funeral tent wearing an expensive diamond bracelet, accepting condolences with the dignity of a grieving widow.
“You poor dear,” she told one of Dad’s longtime church friends. “Lydia is heartbroken, of course. But George was always practical. He would have wanted everything he built to be used wisely.”
I knew exactly what Marjorie meant by “used wisely.”
Pay off the loan drowning Ethan’s brother’s failing restaurant.
Eliminate Marjorie’s enormous credit-card balances.
At my father’s funeral, my husband leaned toward me and calmly remarked that my inheritance could finally erase his family’s financial problems. His mother had already picked out a $600,000 house she expected the money to purchase.
