Linda whispered, “Ethan?”
He didn’t answer.
I opened the front door. “You can both leave now. Or I can call the police and report attempted financial coercion. Your choice.”
Linda moved first. For all her noise, she knew when the room had turned. She walked out muttering that I was cold, ungrateful, impossible. Ethan stayed for a moment longer, staring at me as if he still expected me to break.
Instead, I handed him an envelope.
Inside were copies of the divorce filing and a spreadsheet of every unauthorized transfer my attorney had already traced.
“This,” I said, “is my surprise.”
He took it with shaking hands.
For the first time since my mother died, I didn’t feel helpless.
I felt ready.
And Ethan was about to learn something he should have feared from the beginning: losing my mother had taught me exactly how to survive when the people I love fail me.
The divorce became family gossip before the paperwork was even officially served.
