The money that my dad was pulling from their retirement savings to help his little girl get back on her feet.
She was funneling it to someone on the internet, and my parents either didn’t know or didn’t want to know.
I sat with that information for about 3 days before I did anything with it.
I talked to Jenna about it.
I talked to Dr. Porter.
My first instinct was to call my parents and tell them everything.
But Dr. Porter made a good point.
He said, “Carl, before you act, think about what you want the outcome to be. Are you trying to save your parents from a bad situation, or are you trying to prove a point?”
And honestly, it was a little bit of both.
But mostly, I was tired of being the villain in a story where I was the only one who’d been honest.
I decided to do some digging first.
Not creepy surveillance stuff, just some basic checking.
I asked Derek to send me the screenshots he had.
He’d gotten them from Todd, who had apparently been sitting on receipts for months because he was considering legal action for the money she’d taken from their joint account during the marriage.
Derek sent me bank statements, text messages between Paige and Todd where she admitted to the spending, and a string of messages between Paige and this online guy where she was literally saying things like, “My brother’s rich. I’ll get more money soon.”
And, “My parents don’t check the statements. They just deposit and trust me.”
Reading those messages was something.
The sister I defended, the sister I’d sent money to, the sister whose comfort my parents were willing to disrespect my wife over, was actively scamming all of us.
I organized everything into a folder on my laptop.
Dates, amounts, screenshots, all of it.
I felt like I was building a case for a trial, which in a way I was.
The court of family opinion had convicted me two months ago, and I’d been serving my sentence in silence ever since.
Now I had the evidence to appeal, but I wasn’t going to be reckless about it.
I knew that if I just called my parents and dumped all of this on them, they’d find a way to make it my fault.
They’d say I was being vindictive.
They’d say I was trying to hurt Paige because I was still angry about the bed thing.
Diane would cry.
Rick would get defensive.
And Paige would do what Paige always does: play the victim and redirect the blame.
I needed my parents to see it for themselves.
And as it turned out, the universe was about to hand me the perfect opportunity.
My mom called me.
After almost 2 months of silence, Diane picked up the phone and called me on a Wednesday evening like nothing had happened.
She said, “Hi, honey. How are you?”
Like she was checking in after a normal week.
I played along.
I said, “I’m good, Mom. How are you?”
She said, “Oh, you know, things are fine. Your father’s been having some knee trouble. Paige is still figuring things out.”
I said, “That’s too bad about Dad’s knee.”
She said, “Yes. Well, anyway, the reason I’m calling is that your father and I are thinking about coming up again. We’d love to see the house now that you’ve done some work on it. Derek mentioned you redid the deck.”
I almost laughed out loud.
Derek the double agent.
I said, “Sure, Mom. You’re welcome to visit, but just you and Dad this time.”
She paused.
She said, “Well, Paige would love to come, too. She’s been feeling very isolated.”
I said, “Mom, I’d prefer it to be just you and Dad. We need to talk about some things.”
She didn’t push it, which surprised me.
She said, “All right, we’ll come up the weekend after next.”
I spent the next two weeks preparing.
Not the house, though.
Jenna did vacuum because she can’t help herself.
I prepared what I was going to say.
I went through it with Dr. Porter.
I talked it through with Jenna.
I even ran it by my buddy Marcus from work, who’s one of those guys who’s annoyingly good at reading people and predicting how they’ll react.
Marcus said, “Carl, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to show them the evidence. Your mom is going to cry. Your dad is going to get quiet. And then one of two things will happen. Either they’ll finally see the situation for what it is, or they’ll double down and defend Paige.”