Her expression turned icy.
“The house on Willowcrest Avenue,” she said slowly. “The one I left to you and your daughter eight years ago. Legally signed. Fully paid. It was yours.”
I felt the world tilt.
“I never knew,” I whispered. “I swear.”
Her jaw clenched. She straightened and snapped her fingers. One of her assistants was already dialing.
“Bring me every document,” she said. “And prepare the car. We’re paying my children a visit.”
Three days later, we arrived at my parents’ lavish anniversary party.
Crystal glasses clinked. Music floated through the mansion. I walked in holding Sophie’s hand, wearing a simple dress Grandma Evelyn had bought me. She walked ahead of us, calm and commanding.
My parents went pale when they saw us.
“Mom?” my father stammered. “Rachel? What is going on?”
“This,” Evelyn said coldly, “is the result of your lies.”
She dropped a stack of documents onto the table in front of their guests.
“You stole the home I left for my granddaughter and her child,” she said. “You abandoned them. While they stood in soup lines, you drank champagne.”
Silence swallowed the room.
My mother cried. My father tried to explain, but no one listened.