You turned her against you. Two years ago, when you started being the kind of man who'd do this.
I just happened to be the person who finally told her what you'd become."
"She's my mother! Her money is supposed to be mine!"
"And Chloe is your daughter," I said. "Her father was supposed to be yours. Funny how 'supposed to' works when you don't hold up your end."
He left, furious, and I closed the door — gently, not the way he'd closed his — and I gave my daughter her treatment in a warm apartment, with a full fridge, because Barbara had insisted on that too, the very first night.
The girlfriend left Eric within the month. Of course she did. She'd attached herself to a man with a house and a lifestyle and an inheritance, and all three evaporated the morning a cardboard box appeared on the porch. When the money left, so did she. Eric got to keep exactly what he'd offered his daughter: nothing.
