“Oh, shut up!” Greg yelled. He’d snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like to try and make it! You, Susan, you’re happy with your little nursing job and your little life. I had to build something! I needed capital! Yeah, I needed money. So what? She’s my mother. She was supposed to help me!”
“Help you?” I stood up. I walked around the table until I was inches from him. “By blackmailing her? By threatening her? You made her believe I’d be killed if she didn’t pay.”
“You made her live in fear for forty years. You stole her life, Greg. You stole our peace.”
“She was a fool!” Greg screamed, spittle flying. “She was naive. She believed the story. I just came up with a plan and she fell for it.”
“If she’d just talked to you once, it would have been over. But she was too scared. That’s on her, not me. I just took what was offered.”
The slap echoed through the room. It wasn’t from me.
It was Susan. She had stood up and struck her brother across the face. Hard.
“Shut up! Don’t you dare talk about Mom like that! You monster!”
Greg clutched his cheek. His eyes flared with rage. He started to move toward her, but I grabbed his wrist. My grip was like iron.
I might be old, but forty years of manual labor doesn’t just disappear. I squeezed his wrist right over his gold watch until he winced.
“Get out,” I said quietly. “Get out of my house.”
“You can’t do this!” Greg hissed, trying to pull away. “I’m an heir. Half of this is mine. I’ll sue you for every penny.”
“I’ll have you committed. I’ll tell the court you’re a predator. You won’t get a dime.”
I let go of his arm. He stumbled back, rubbing his wrist.
“Sue me?”
I went to the table and picked up the thick white envelope.
“You came for your inheritance, Greg? Your payday?”
“Yeah! It’s mine by law!”
“Here!” I threw the envelope at his chest.
Greg caught it instinctively. His eyes lit up with greed. He felt the weight of it.
“What’s this? Cash? You emptied the accounts?”
“Open it.”
He tore the paper open. Inside was a thick stack. He pulled it out. His face fell.
It was a “dummy” stack. Strips of newspaper cut to the size of dollar bills. On the top and bottom were photocopies of his own blackmail letters. And in the middle, one single real bill.
A ten-dollar bill from 1985. A “red seal” note I’d kept as a souvenir. The kind of money he started stealing from my dresser when he was a kid.
“That’s all you’re getting,” I said. “I’ve already seen my lawyer.”
“I’ve signed the house and the lake property over to Susan as a gift. And I’ve updated my will. Everything I own goes to her. To you, Greg, I leave that ten dollars. For the memories.”
“You… you can’t do that,” he rasped. The newspaper strips fluttered to the floor like trash.
“I can and I did. And as for suing me…” I nodded toward the file of photos and letters. “My friend Bill, the former deputy? He’s already shared copies of these with his contacts at the DA’s office. Extortion, elder abuse, fraud.”
“They haven’t filed charges yet. But if you ever touch Susan, or try to sue, or even show your face in this town again, that file goes on the prosecutor’s desk. You’ll be looking at ten to fifteen years.”
“You’ll love prison, Greg. They have a lot of ‘serious people’ there. They’ll show you what a real shakedown looks like.”
The room went silent. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and Greg’s heavy breathing.
He knew. He was beaten. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw pure, unadulterated hatred.
“I hope you rot, old man!” he spat.
“You, your memories, and your dead wife. You ruined my life.”
He turned and stormed out. I heard the front door slam. I heard his car roar to life in the driveway. I heard the screech of tires.
My legs gave out. I sat down. Susan was at the window, her face in her hands, crying silently.
We sat in silence for ten minutes. The floor was covered in newspaper scraps. The “dummy” stack I’d spent all night making was just litter now.
“Dad?” Susan turned to me. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“Are you really going to press charges? Are you going to put him in jail?”
I looked at my hands. Knotted, spotted with age. Hands that built things, not broke them.
“No, honey. I won’t. It’s not right to put your own son in a cage, no matter what he is.”
“God will judge him. But I had to scare him. I had to make sure he never comes back here.”
“What if he does?”
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