Somehow emergency eventually meant handbags, restaurants, resorts, and anything else she decided she deserved.
My attorney Bradley had warned me about it more than once.
“You know you can stop this.”
I always gave the same answer.
“They’re family.”
That night, lying under hospital blankets with stitches pulling every time I breathed too deeply, the phrase sounded ridiculous.
They were family.
And they had planned vacations for the week of my surgery.
.
I called Bradley.
He answered on the second ring.
“Jacqueline? It’s two in the morning.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“I want every secondary card connected to me shut down.”
He became fully awake.
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
My parents had cards.
Sabrina had cards.
There were also secondary checking accounts I had funded for household expenses and family emergencies.
“I want my personal funding stopped,” I said. “Anything legally theirs stays theirs. Anything mine stops tonight.”
Bradley was quiet.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Then I added:
“And I want to begin the process of ending their occupancy at Tahoe.”
That required more care.
They had lived there long enough that I could not simply toss their belongings outside and call them trespassers.
Bradley reminded me of that immediately.
“We do this properly.”
“Fine.”
“Not emotionally.”
“I’m past emotional.”
I was not, of course.
I was exhausted.
Angry.