“I opened the box,” I said. “You stole from my children for years. How could you do that to Sarah? To them?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “I borrowed. None of that matters now, anyway. I delivered that box because you and I need to discuss Sarah’s life insurance payout.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want my share,” she said.
“You can’t be serious, Linda.”
“Let me make this simple,” she said. Her voice shifted, sharper now, deliberate. “You sign the insurance money over to me. I disappear. The kids never have to know any of this. If you don’t, then I file for emergency custody tomorrow morning.”
I sat there with my pulse pounding in my ears.
Now I understood why Linda had delivered the box.
It was a power move.
Which meant she still had one more move waiting.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“It won’t be difficult at all to get a social worker to look around that house and see that you aren’t coping at all. My lawyer already drafted a petition that outlines how you’ve been neglecting the kids. A judge will take one look at you and hand them to me.”
“Sarah would never want that,” I said.
“Sarah isn’t here anymore,” she said flatly. “I am. And I am their grandmother. I have rights.”
Julie was upstairs reading to Jeremy. Joyce and Joan were in the living room, quietly coloring at the coffee table.
The thought of anyone trying to remove them from this house, from me, made it difficult to breathe.
How was I supposed to stop her?
“You wouldn’t win,” I said, but my voice sounded weak.
“Wouldn’t I?” Her tone softened, almost pitying. “Think about it. You forgot Joan’s medication twice this week. The school called about Julie missing assignments. I’ve been keeping track.”
“You’ve been spying on us?”
“I’ve been concerned,” she corrected. “Any judge will see a man drowning. I’m offering you a way out. Give me what’s mine, and I’ll let you keep them.”
“What’s yours?” I repeated. “None of it is yours.”
“Sarah owed me,” she said. “She knew it. That’s why she didn’t fight me about the money.”
I closed my eyes and forced myself to think.
The insurance payout was supposed to support us for years.
But if I had to choose between money and my children, there was no choice at all.
“How much time do I have?” I asked.
“Forty-eight hours,” she said. “I’ll bring the paperwork myself. A simple transfer. No lawyers. No questions. And we never speak again.”
I should have told her I would fight her in every courtroom in the state.
Instead, I heard myself say, “I need to think.”
“Don’t think too long,” she replied. “I would hate for those children to spend tonight wondering which bedroom they’ll be sleeping in next week.”
The line went dead.
I sat in the kitchen for a very long time.
Outside, afternoon faded into the soft gray light Sarah had always loved.
She used to say the house felt warmest at that hour.
Now it felt like someone else’s house.
I thought about calling an attorney.
But she had been planting seeds for years.
The forgotten pickups.
The late tuition payments she had quietly offered to handle.
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