He sipped his drink with irritation, slouched back in his chair, and raised his voice.
“Watch what? You expect me to watch your mom scamming someone?”
“An old lady trying to blackmail a young girl. Rachel, if you’re not embarrassed, I sure as hell am!”
“She wasn’t scamming anyone!”
“David, she raised you for over thirty years. No one knows what kind of woman she was better than you. Don’t insult her memory with this nonsense.”
People nearby began glancing over curiously.
I pushed the document back toward him.
Maybe his indifference rubbed off on me, because even my grief started to dull.
“Raised me? She was your mom. You’ve lost your mind, Rachel.”
I thought I had made myself clear, but he seemed incapable of understanding.
His tone grew harsher, then suddenly softened.
“Rachel, I know it’s hard to accept your mother-in-law’s passing, but you need to be rational.”
“She was old, contributed nothing to the family, and needed your support. She’d long since become a burden.”
“If she were alive, she couldn’t have made $5,000, let alone $50,000.”
“We need to be realistic. If you think fifty thousand is too little, then you name a price.”
Suddenly, it all became clear to me.