I stood outside Kara’s sprawling house, clutching a small gift bag in my hand. My stomach churned with unease. It had been two years since Mark’s death, and Kara, his mother, had rarely made an effort to include me in anything.
Most of the time, Mark’s siblings were the ones who invited me to family events, even though, technically, I wasn’t part of their family anymore. It felt like a small consolation. But when Kara sent me an invitation to her birthday party, I knew I had to go. I needed to prove to myself that I could still be a part of this family, even if it wasn’t the same without Mark.
“You can do this, Melissa,” I whispered to myself, taking a deep breath. “For Mark. For Eleanor.”
The thought of Eleanor brought a fresh wave of grief. Eleanor had been my rock after Mark passed away, treating me like the daughter she never had. She had only been gone three months, but I still found myself reaching for the phone to call her, hoping to hear her reassuring voice on the other end.
I rang the doorbell, forcing a smile onto my face. The door swung open, and there stood Kara, her lips tightly pressed together in what could only be described as a thinly veiled grimace.
“Melissa. You made it,” she said, her tone clearly suggesting that she would have preferred otherwise.
“Happy birthday, Kara,” I said, handing her the gift bag, doing my best to mask the tension that hung between us.
She took the bag without a word of thanks and turned, already moving away. “Everyone’s in the backyard,” she said coldly.
I followed her through the house, my eyes scanning the familiar surroundings. Nothing had changed since I was last here. There were photos of Mark everywhere: as a child, a teenager, a college graduate — but none of our wedding day. Kara had always made it clear how she felt about me.
The backyard was filled with family, friends, and distant relatives. Some faces lit up when they saw me, offering warm hugs, while others watched me with barely hidden disdain.
Emma, Mark’s niece, came running toward me. At 20, she had always felt more like a little sister to Mark than just a niece.
“Melissa! I’m so glad you came!” she said, giving me a tight hug, her warmth a sharp contrast to Kara’s coldness.
“Kara invited me,” I said, still surprised that I had even received the invite.
Emma raised an eyebrow. “She did? That’s… unexpected.”
“Tell me about it.”
The next hour felt like an endurance test. I tried to blend in, making small talk with family members, but every time I found a moment of peace, Kara would swoop in with a sharp comment.
“That outfit is quite… casual for a family gathering like this, isn’t it, Melissa?” Kara said loudly, eyeing me with judgment as I chatted with Mark’s uncle.
“Oh, I think it looks lovely,” his wife interjected kindly, but Kara ignored her.
“I’m surprised you still come to these things,” she continued, her voice oozing with disdain. “Most people would have moved on by now.”
I clenched my fists, biting my tongue. “Family is important to me, Kara.”
“Are we really your family though?” Kara asked with a cold smile. “Without Mark?”
The words stung more than I cared to admit, and I excused myself to get a drink, feeling Kara’s eyes burn into my back.
By the time the cake was served, my patience was all but gone. I had endured one too many comments about my job, my appearance, and even my grief.
“Still at that little marketing firm?” she had sneered earlier. “You look tired, dear,” she’d remarked as if I hadn’t already been drained by the loss of Mark and Eleanor.
But now, as I picked at my cake, Kara appeared again, this time with a woman I didn’t recognize.
“This is Diane,” Kara said. “She’s a colleague of my son from law school. They’ve been spending a lot of time together.”
The implication was clear. Kara was preparing to replace me in Mark’s life, and I had overstayed my welcome.
Diane offered a stiff smile, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
Something inside me snapped.
“Enough of the veiled barbs, Kara. Is this why you invited me here, so you could pick a fight with me?” I blurted out, my voice louder than I intended.
The crowd around us fell silent. Kara’s face turned a deep shade of red.
“How dare you!” she hissed. “You have no right to speak to me that way in my own home!”
“I’m just responding to what you’ve been throwing at me all afternoon,” I shot back, standing my ground.
Kara’s fury exploded.
“Get out!” she screamed, pointing toward the door. “You’re not welcome here anymore! You never were! Mark is gone, Eleanor is gone, and you have no place in this family!”
The silence that followed was deafening. A few of the guests turned away, embarrassed by the scene, but most just watched, wide-eyed.
I placed my plate down carefully, trying my best not to let the tears come.
“Goodbye, Kara,” I said quietly, forcing a smile. “Happy birthday.”
I walked through the house with my head high, but once I was outside and in my car, the tears came.
I drove home on autopilot, my humiliation a heavy weight in my chest. As I unlocked the front door, my phone rang.
Emma’s name flashed across the screen.
“Emma, I really don’t want to talk about what happened,” I started, wiping my eyes.
“Melissa, listen to me,” Emma’s voice was trembling with urgency. “I think you need to come back here. With a lawyer.”
I froze, my heart skipping a beat. “What?”
“She didn’t kick you out for no reason,” Emma said quickly. “They’re hiding something from you!”
“What are you talking about?” My mind raced.
“After you left, I overheard Kara talking to a man in her study. He’s a lawyer, the same one who handled Grandma Eleanor’s estate. Melissa, she left her business to you. The whole thing. Not to Aunt Kara.”
I sank into the couch, feeling the ground beneath me shift. “What?”
“Kara just found out before the party. That’s why she was so awful to you. But there’s more…” Emma’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re planning to hide the inheritance from you. The lawyer said something about fabricating documents. They’re going to steal it from you, Melissa!”
My shock quickly hardened into something colder, something more determined. “Thank you, Emma. I’ll handle this.”
I hung up and immediately dialed another number. David had been my lawyer since Mark and I got married. He answered on the second ring.
“Melissa? Everything okay?” he asked.
I explained the situation as quickly as I could, and David’s response was immediate, filled with anger.
“Those crooked… I’ll meet you at Kara’s house in twenty minutes. If they’re trying to falsify inheritance documents, we need to act fast before they file anything.”
Twenty-five minutes later, David and I walked back into Kara’s birthday party.
The chatter in the backyard immediately halted as people noticed us. Kara, who had been laughing with a group of guests, froze in her tracks when she saw us.
“Melissa!” she recovered quickly, plastering a fake smile on her face. “What are you doing back?”
David stepped forward, his usual friendly demeanor replaced by a stern expression. “Ma’am, I’m Melissa’s attorney, David. We need to speak with you and your lawyer immediately.”
Kara’s smile faltered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We know everything,” David said firmly, his voice carrying across the backyard. “And unless your lawyer confesses what you’re planning, I’ll be making a call to the authorities.”
A thin, nervous-looking man stepped forward from the crowd. I recognized him vaguely from Eleanor’s funeral. He glanced at Kara, who shot him a hard look.
“I don’t know what you think you know,” Kara began, but David cut her off.
“We know that Eleanor left her business to Melissa, not to you,” he said loudly. “And we know you’re planning to falsify documents to steal that inheritance.”
A wave of shocked murmurs rippled through the crowd.
The lawyer’s face turned pale, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
David pulled out his phone. “We can do this the easy way, or the legal way. Your choice.”
The lawyer’s gaze flickered between Kara, David, and the growing crowd of witnesses. His shoulders sagged in defeat.
“It’s true,” he admitted quietly. “Mrs. Thompson asked me to… adjust some paperwork regarding her mother’s will.”
The backyard erupted in shocked whispers, and Kara’s face drained of color.
“You idiot!” she screamed at the lawyer. “That business belongs to me! My mother built it from nothing! Melissa has no right to it! She isn’t even blood family!”
David remained calm. “Actually,” he said coolly, “Eleanor had every legal right to leave her property to whoever she chose. And she chose Melissa.”
“This isn’t over,” Kara seethed, glaring at me.
“You might want to stop talking,” David advised. “We have enough evidence to press charges for attempted fraud.”
All the fight seemed to drain out of Kara in an instant. She sank into a nearby chair, defeated.
As David spoke quietly with the lawyer about the next steps, Emma appeared at my side, squeezing my hand.
“I knew Grandma Eleanor would’ve wanted you to have it,” she whispered.
I squeezed her hand back, tears filling my eyes.
As we left the party, I felt a strange sense of lightness. It wasn’t about the business or the money.
It was knowing that Eleanor had believed in me and wanted me to carry on her legacy. In that moment, I could almost feel her presence beside me, her hand on my shoulder, guiding me forward.