And then I made a decision.
If Natalie came for my money—if she came to demand what forty years of my life had built—I would be prepared. I was not going to let myself be blindsided. I was not going to allow them to make me feel like I was in debt to them simply for being their mother.
That night, I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned in bed for hours, listening to every sound in the house, feeling time advance inexorably toward that moment I knew had to come.
And when I finally managed to sleep, I dreamed of that black binder. I dreamed it was full of papers, of truths, of justice.
I did not have to wait long for my premonitions to come true.
Just three days after that conversation with Sarah—just three days after that night—I decided to prepare for the inevitable.
Natalie appeared at my house, but she did not come alone. She never comes alone lately. She always brings Adrien as if she needs an accomplice to face her own mother.
It was around four in the afternoon. I was in the kitchen preparing some soup when I heard the noise at the front door.
They did not ring the doorbell. They did not knock. They simply walked in using the copy of the key I had given Natalie years ago, when I still believed my daughter would come to visit me out of love and not convenience.
“Mom!” Natalie shouted from the living room. “Are you here? We need to talk to you.”
The way she said it made me stop what I was doing. It was not a loving greeting. It was not the voice of a daughter coming to see how her mother is.
It was the voice of someone coming on a mission—with a specific purpose, with an agenda already prepared.
I walked out of the kitchen drying my hands on my apron.
Natalie was standing in the middle of my living room with her arms crossed, looking around as if she were evaluating every object, every piece of furniture, every detail of the decor.
Adrien was next to her with that arrogant posture he always has, as if the whole world owed him something.
“Hello, Natalie,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I did not know you were coming today.”
She did not even look me in the eye when she responded.
“We do not have to notify you every time we come. Mom, this is our house, too. Well, it will be our house someday, right? So, we can enter whenever we want.”
Her words hit me like stones.
It will be our house someday.
As if I were already dead. As if my life were just a temporary obstacle before they could take over everything I had built with my effort.
Adrien moved toward the sofa and dropped onto it without any consideration, stretching out his legs and putting his dirty shoes on my coffee table—that wooden table I had polished and cared for over years. That table that was a gift from my late husband.
“Take your feet off there,” I told him firmly. “That table is not for resting shoes.”
He looked at me with a mocking smile but did not move his feet.
“Oh, Eleanor, do not be so delicate. It is just an old table. Besides, soon we are going to change all this old furniture for more modern things. Right, Natalie?”
Natalie smiled and nodded as she sat next to him.
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