Sitting in my car that Tuesday, it felt like my mother reaching back through six months to protect her daughters one more time.
Jenna wanted her name on a deed that could never carry it.
She wanted insurance money that was already locked in a vault no marriage could open.
She was planning to throw away two grieving little girls to steal a fortune that had never, for one second, been available to steal.
She just didn’t know it yet.
So I walked back into that house cheerful.
“Hey, baby! I’m home!”
That night, I played the part of a man coming apart.
“Jenna,” I said quietly, over dinner, after the girls were in bed. “Maybe you’re right. It’s so much. Maybe I should give the girls up.”
Her eyes actually sparkled.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she breathed. “That’s the best decision. You’ll see.”
And then I said the line I knew would seal it.
