We were never rich, but we never lacked for anything essential either. Christopher was born two years after the wedding. He was my only child.
I had two miscarriages before him and one after, so when he finally stayed, I protected him as if he were made of glass. Maybe that’s where it all started. Maybe I loved him too much.
I protected him too much. I gave him everything I didn’t have, and in the process, forgot to teach him the most important thing: that things are earned, not inherited by divine right.
Robert passed away 12 years ago, a massive heart attack while driving home from work. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. He left me the house, some modest savings, and a small pension that barely covered basic expenses.
Christopher was already married to Lucy by then. They had been together for three years. At first, after the funeral, they talked about me moving in with them.
«You can’t stay alone, mum,» Christopher would say.
But I resisted. I still had strength. I could still take care of myself. I still had my house, my space, my routines.
For five years, I lived that way, visiting them on Sundays, receiving their polite calls midweek. But things changed when Christopher lost his job.
They never told me exactly what happened. Something about company cutbacks, restructuring, the gentle lies people tell when someone is fired. Lucy worked, but her salary wasn’t enough to maintain the lifestyle they had become accustomed to.
The expensive apartment in the new part of town, the latest model car, the weekend trips to restaurants. That’s when the visits became more frequent and the conversations more specific.
«Mum, this house is too big for you alone,» Lucy would say, looking around with those calculating eyes I didn’t know how to read yet.
«I don’t feel alone here. I’m fine,» I replied.
And it was true. I liked my solitude. I liked my plants in the garden, my television shows at night, my morning coffee on the porch.
«But think about the practicality,» Christopher insisted. «If something happened to you, if you fell, if you felt sick in the middle of the night, no one would notice until hours later.»
They had a point about that, I suppose. Old age brings those fears, that feeling of fragility that wasn’t there before, that fear of dying alone and being found days later by a neighbour who notices the smell.
So when they proposed that we all move into my house together, I accepted. They would sell their apartment, pay their debts, and we would live as a family.
«It will be like before, Mum,» Christopher said, «like when I was a kid.»
But it wasn’t like before. From day one, things were different. Lucy reorganised the whole house, «to make it more functional,» she said.
My furniture ended up in the basement, my paintings replaced by hers, my kitchen redesigned to her tastes. Little by little, my house stopped being mine.
Meals were no longer family moments but quick transactions. Christopher ate, looking at his cell phone. Lucy talked on the phone with her friends. I sat in silence, feeling more invisible at my own table every day.
The comments started, small at first, almost imperceptible.
«Ophelia, did you already put salt in this? Because it tastes like you did it twice.»
«Mum, do you remember asking me to buy milk? We bought three cartons this week because you keep asking.»
«Ophelia, you left the water running again. You have to be more careful.»
Each comment was a seed of doubt planted in my head. Was I forgetting things? Was I losing my memory? I started to question myself, to write everything down, to double-check everything I did, and while I shrank, they grew.
Christopher spent hours locked in what used to be Robert’s sewing room, now converted into his office. He talked about new businesses, investments, opportunities, but I never saw any money come in. I only saw my savings begin to disappear.
«Mum, I need to borrow two thousand dollars,» Christopher would say. «It’s for the business. I’ll pay you back next month.»
He never paid me back.
«Ophelia, can you help us with the electricity bill this month? We’re a little tight,» Lucy would ask with that soft voice I now knew was pure manipulation.
I always helped. I always said yes. Because he was my son, because they were my family, because mother’s sacrifice, right? That’s what we were taught.
My pension of one thousand two hundred dollars a month vanished in three weeks. The thirty thousand dollars Robert had left me turned into twenty thousand, then fifteen thousand, then eight thousand.
I kept track in a notebook hidden in my room, adding up every loan that was never repaid, every favour that turned into an obligation. But I told myself it was fine, that’s what family was for, that Christopher was going through a tough time, and I had to support him like I always had.
Lucy was more subtle, but more constant. She always had a suggestion; she always had a comment wrapped in concern.
«Ophelia, don’t you think you should see a doctor? I’ve noticed you’re more forgetful.»
«Maybe we should put the accounts in Christopher’s name, just in case something happens to you. It’s safer.»
«Why don’t you give me your debit card? I can do the shopping. That way you don’t have to go out in the cold.»
Every suggestion was a small surrender. Every surrender made me smaller, more dependent, more invisible. And I accepted everything because I thought it was love. I thought they were taking care of me.
How foolish I was. My friends started to disappear from my life, not because I wanted them to, but because every time I planned to see them, something more important came up.
«Mum, I need you to stay home today because the internet technician is coming.»
«Ophelia, you’d better not go out today. It’s raining and you might catch a cold.»
Until they stopped calling. Until I stopped trying myself. I convinced myself that at my age I no longer needed friends, that my family was enough.
My brother Arthur came to visit me every two months. He lived in New York City, three hours away. He was a successful man, the owner of several businesses, but he never married or had children.
I was his only close family, and he was the only person who saw what I refused to see.
«Ophelia, that boy is using you,» he’d tell me, looking at me intently with those grey eyes we inherited from our mother. «And that woman is worse. They’re draining you, sister.»
«Don’t say that, Arthur. Christopher is my son.»
«That’s exactly why I’m telling you, because I know you. Because I know you’re capable of disappearing completely just so he can be okay.»
But I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t want to listen to him, because listening meant accepting that I had failed as a mother, that I had raised a man capable of exploiting his own mother.
The last time Arthur came, four months ago, he had a fierce argument with Christopher. I was in the kitchen, but I heard everything.
«You’re stealing from your mother,» Arthur said bluntly.
«She gives me the money because she wants to,» Christopher replied.
«She gives it to you because you manipulate her, because you make her feel that if she doesn’t help you, she’s a bad mother!»
«You have no right to come into my house and insult me!»
«This isn’t your house. It’s your mother’s house. And if you had an ounce of shame, you would be helping her instead of bleeding her dry.»
Christopher threw him out. And I, cowardly as always, said nothing. I let my son kick out my brother. I let him leave angry.
I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see him alive. Arthur died two months ago. A cerebral aneurysm. Quick, painless, they told me.
I went to the funeral alone. Christopher said he had an important meeting. Lucy said someone had to stay to watch the house.
At the funeral, Arthur’s attorney handed me a letter. «Mr. Arthur left instructions that you receive this in person,» he told me.
Arthur’s letter was burning in my hands as I returned from the funeral. It was a thick, white envelope, sealed with red wax like in old movies. On the front, in my brother’s firm, slanted handwriting, it simply read, For Ophelia, read alone.
I waited until night. Christopher and Lucy had gone out to dinner with friends. I had said I was tired, that I preferred to stay home. It was a lie.
I needed to be alone to read what my brother had to tell me from the other side of death. I sat on my bed, with the night lamp on, and opened the envelope with trembling hands.
Inside were two things: a multi-page handwritten letter, and a folded legal document. I started with the letter.
My dearest Ophelia, if you are reading this, it means my time has finally come. Don’t mourn for me. I lived well, I lived my way, and I leave knowing I did the right thing by leaving you what I am going to leave you.
But before you read on, I need you to understand something. What is in that legal document, do not tell anyone. No one, Ophelia. Not even Christopher, especially not Christopher.
I paused. My heart was beating hard. I kept reading.
I know it hurts to hear this from your own brother, but that boy is not the child you raised. I don’t know when he went wrong, whether it was when you spoiled him too much, or when he chose to marry that viper of a wife. But the truth is, your son is a weak, greedy man, capable of anything for money.
And she is worse. She is the brain behind everything. He is just the instrument.
Tears began to fall onto the paper, smudging the ink. But I continued.
Over these last few years, I have watched you slowly disappear. Every time I came to visit you, you were a little smaller, a little quieter, a little more absent. And those two grew in your space like weeds.
I’ve watched you give them money you didn’t have, sign papers you didn’t understand, give up things that were rightfully yours. And the worst part is that I’ve watched you convince yourself that this was love.
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob.
But love is not what they are giving you, sister. Love is what you give them without receiving anything in return, except crumbs of attention and mountains of manipulation. I tried to open your eyes. God knows I tried.
But you’re stubborn, Ophelia. You always were. So I decided to do something different. I decided to protect you even from yourself.
I unfolded the legal document with trembling hands. It was a will, Arthur’s will. And as I read it, the world stopped.
My brother had left me everything: three apartment units in the most exclusive part of the city, each valued at approximately $150,000, and a house facing the ocean on the south coast, a property he had bought 10 years ago, and which, according to the document, was worth around $300,000.
In total, almost $800,000 in property. I had to read it three times to believe it. Arthur had no children, had never married, and I was his sole heir. It was all mine.
I returned to the letter, my hands shaking so much I could barely hold the paper.
These assets are yours and no one else’s. I have left very clear instructions with my attorney, Mr. Andrew Harrison. He will contact you to arrange the transfer of the properties. But Ophelia, listen to me closely.
Do not tell Christopher or Lucy anything until you are completely sure they won’t try to take it from you. And believe me, they will try. My brother knew me too well.
I know your first instinct will be to share it with them. You’ll want to tell them, help them, give them a part, because that’s who you are. But I beg you, sister, don’t do it. Not yet.
Watch them first. See how they behave when they don’t know you have something they want. That’s when you’ll see who they really are.
I turned to the last page.
I have lived 73 years in this world, Ophelia, and I have met a lot of people. Good people and bad people. And I can assure you that your daughter-in-law is one of the worst. That woman doesn’t love you. She never loved you.
You are a means to an end. And the end is everything she can get from you. Christopher is weak. She controls him. If you tell him about the inheritance, in less than a week they will be pressuring you to give them everything.
They’ll invent emergencies, crises, illnesses. They’ll make you feel guilty for having when they don’t. And you’ll give in, because you always give in.
He was right. He knew exactly who I was.
So I ask you this, dear sister, be selfish for once in your life. Keep this secret. Protect what is yours. And if at any time you feel you are in danger, that they are manipulating you too much or forcing you to do things you don’t want to, call Mr. Harrison.
He has instructions to help you. I have paid him in advance to represent you and protect your interests, so you won’t have to spend a penny.
The letter ended with a simple but devastating farewell.
I always loved you, Ophelia. You were the best sister a man could ask for. Now it’s your turn to be good to yourself. Don’t let them destroy you. Don’t give them that power.
And if you ever doubt, remember this: People who truly love you don’t need you to be broken to feel complete. With all my love, your brother, Arthur.
I cried until I had no tears left that night. I cried for my brother, for his absence, for his unconditional love. I cried for myself, for all the years I spent shrinking so that others could grow. And I cried for Christopher, for the son he had been and the man he had become.
