Chapter 9 - Teresa Fights Back
Rachel sent Teresa a formal demand.
No contact with Amy.
No access to our financial accounts.
No use of our personal information.
Preserve all records relating to the inheritance and the attempted loan.
Teresa responded within two hours.
Not through a lawyer.
Through Facebook.
She posted a photograph of herself holding newborn Frederick.
The caption said she was being “cruelly separated from the grandson she raised.”
She claimed Amy was emotionally unstable.
She claimed I was being manipulated.
She claimed she had spent “tens of thousands” supporting us.
By dinner, more than a hundred people had commented.
Some defended her.
Some attacked Amy.
One woman wrote that mothers like Amy used babies to control husbands.
Amy read it.
I watched her face close.
“Give me your phone.”
She shook her head.
“Amy.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
She looked at me.
“I spent a year trying not to create problems with your family.”
“I know.”
“I let your mother criticize my cooking.”
“I know.”
“She told me I was lazy because I didn’t go back to work six weeks after giving birth.”
My chest tightened.
“She told me good wives don’t ask their husbands to help at night.”
I had never heard that.
“She told me you complained about me.”
“What?”
Amy nodded.
“She said you told her I had changed after Frederick.”
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
Her voice broke.
“But I didn’t know then.”
Teresa had not simply stolen money.
She had been quietly isolating us from each other.
That night, I posted one statement.
I did not insult my mother.
I did not mention the inheritance.
I wrote only that Amy and Frederick were safe, that our family needed privacy, and that financial and legal issues were being handled through counsel.
Then I deleted social media from my phone.
The next morning, my boss called me into his office.
Someone had anonymously emailed the company.
They accused me of misusing corporate expense accounts.
I almost laughed.
My boss didn’t.
“Connor, I don’t believe this.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because they attached documents.”
He turned his monitor.
Copies of internal project reimbursements filled the screen.
My mother should not have had them.
Then I recognized the scanner marks.
Those files had been copied from my home office.
Only a few people had ever used that office.
Amy.
Me.
Teresa.
And my cousin Luke.
Luke worked for me as a junior project coordinator.
He was also Teresa’s favorite nephew.
I suddenly remembered Luke coming over two months earlier while I was out.
He told Amy I had asked him to pick up project plans.
I had never asked him.
That evening, I called Luke.
He answered on the third ring.
“Hey, man.”
“Did you give my mother documents from my office?”
Silence.
“Luke.”
“I can explain.”
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Because the betrayal had just moved from my mother to someone I had trusted with my livelihood.
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