Two sets of small footsteps climbed the stairs.
Then I heard Jenna exhale and make a phone call.
“They’re finally upstairs. Karen, I can’t do this. I can’t.”
“I just need him to put my name on the deed. That’s all.”
“Once he adopts them officially, they’re our problem forever. So I need them gone first.”
“That house and the insurance money should be for us, not for two kids who aren’t even mine.”
I stood in that hallway and felt the floor tilt under me.
I nearly got sick right there on the carpet.
But I didn’t make a sound.
I slipped back out the front door, sat down in my car, and shook for a full ten minutes.
And then, somewhere in the middle of the shaking, something in me went very still and very clear.
No confrontation. Not yet.
A screaming match in a kitchen would just make me the bitter ex who overreacted.
