“My grandfather?”
My mother’s father had supposedly died when I was six.
My father’s father had died before I was born.
“What’s his name?” I asked, confused.
“Frank. Frank Morrison.”
My heart stopped.
Frank Morrison was my mother’s father.
But he wasn’t dead.
That was just what my mother told everyone.
There had been some kind of massive falling-out when I was young, and my mother had cut him off completely. She told the entire family he was dead and forbade anyone from contacting him.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Please send him in.”
An elderly man walked in.
Eighty-one years old, but standing straight and tall. He had kind eyes and my mother’s nose.
He looked at Ethan in the isolette, then at me, and his eyes filled with tears.
“Rebecca,” he said softly. “I know you probably don’t remember me. You were so young when your mother decided I was dead.”
“I remember you,” I said.
And I did.
Vague memories of a man who brought me books and played board games with me. Then suddenly he was gone, and we were told he had passed away.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Your aunt Linda called me. Your mother’s sister. She told me what happened. The emergency C-section. Your mother choosing Broadway tickets over helping you. The money you’ve been sending all these years. She thought I should know.”
He pulled up a chair and sat next to me.
“I need to tell you something about your mother,” he said. “She wasn’t always like this. When she was young, she was sweet. Kind. But after her mother and I divorced, something changed. She became entitled. Manipulative. She learned to play the victim and make everyone else feel guilty for not giving her what she wanted.”
“Why did you and Grandma divorce?” I asked.
I had never known the real story.
“Because I couldn’t watch her turn your mother into a monster. Your grandmother enabled every bad behavior. When your mother stole from her college roommate, your grandmother blamed the roommate. When your mother maxed out credit cards in my name, your grandmother said I should just pay them. I finally left when your mother was nineteen. Your grandmother turned her against me. Told her I’d abandoned them. Your mother believed it.”
He looked at me intently.
“She’s done this before, Rebecca. Found someone to fund her lifestyle. She did it to her first husband, Amanda’s biological father.”
I blinked.
“Did you know Amanda has a different dad?”
“I didn’t. What?”
“Your mother was married at twenty-two to a man named David Chin. Lovely guy. Owned a successful restaurant. She drained him dry, ran up his credit cards, demanded expensive trips, spent money faster than he could make it. When he finally put his foot down, she divorced him, got half his assets, and moved on to your father. Your dad is a good man, but weak. He won’t stand up to her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know that what you did, cutting off the money, was right. She’ll never change, Rebecca. She’ll take everything you have and still demand more. You could give her a million dollars, and she’d want two million. You could give up your whole life for her, and she’d complain that you didn’t do it more conveniently.”
I started crying.
All those years.
All that money.
All that trying to be good enough.
“Listen to me,” he said firmly. “I’ve been watching from afar. Linda keeps me updated. I know you’ve been supporting them since you were twenty. I know you’ve sacrificed your own family’s well-being to fund their lifestyle. I know you almost didn’t make it last month, and your mother couldn’t be bothered to help.”
He paused.
“Do you know what I did when Linda told me?”