Every school lunch payment, every doctor’s visit, every utility bill had been documented. Eleanor had saved every receipt. Larissa turned several pages and pointed to the final line of the spreadsheet.
There, in black and white, was the total: $312,400.
Her voice stayed even. “That’s what our grandmother spent raising us during the years you chose not to be here.”
Mike stared at the figure, stunned. He had no answer for records that complete. Larissa added, in the same steady tone, that both her legal education and Daniel’s medical training had also been funded by Eleanor.
The silence in the room became unbearable. For the first time, Mike seemed to grasp the full humiliation of his position. He had come asking for money from the very people to whom he still morally owed a fortune.
Daniel, who had been silent until then, leaned forward and looked at his father with a level, cold expression. “My answer is no,” he said. “Completely and finally no.”
Hearing that from his own son, Mike panicked. He changed tactics at once, softening his voice, admitting mistakes, trying to sound remorseful. He reminded them that he was still their biological father.
Larissa held his gaze. To her own surprise, she felt no surge of anger. Just emptiness, and a thin layer of contempt…
