[Her mom died when she was in high school, right when girls started feeling things. Makes sense.]
[The aunt’s story checks out. Back then, Manfred was still handsome. No wonder he treated her so well. She was basically his young wife.]
[And now it makes sense why she cut ties the moment she got into college. It’s all adding up.]
[But seriously, what kind of man is this Manfred? His current wife just gave him a son, and he still leaves every cent to Mirabelle? What’s his wife and kid supposed to live on? Fresh air?]
The live chat was filling up with comments like that, eating up every lie my aunt and grandmother had been feeding them. They kept throwing dirt on me and my dad, and the more I stayed quiet, the more it stuck.
My aunt, meanwhile, looked like the cat who’d just caught the canary. She put on this pitiful, wronged expression, milking the sympathy from the viewers.
“So, dear viewers, you have to stand up for us, a poor widow and her orphaned son,” she said sweetly. “I am Manfred’s lawful wife, and my son is his legitimate child. Not like this little temptress here, who, at such a young age, already knows how to steal a man’s heart!”