AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Again, she didn’t reply and continued to look at Mr. Morell. “Well?”
He sat down and took a deep breath as he consulted the stack of paper in his folder. “You will have the apartment for another six months and your allowance will be cut in half for the remainder of the year. After that you’ll need to provide for yourself.”
“You’re funny,” she cut him off as she took off her glasses. “But I’m not in the mood for jokes. My father and I had a deal—”
“Which expired the day he died,” Mr. Morell said as he handed her a piece of paper. “This is all you get and he said I should tell you to be grateful with even this.”
“GRATEFUL?!” She screamed and I flinched and
looked away from her as she tore up the paper. “He’s worth billions and he wants me to be grateful for the remainder of the year? You’re lying. What did you do with all my father’s money huh? I know your vultures have probably been stealing—”
“Mr. Morell and Grandpa have been friends for almost four years. If you don’t want to respect me, fine. But you should at least respect him!” I hollered at her.
Her nose flared and her brown eyes finally shifted to me. Even though she was glaring, at least I wasn’t invisible now. “And why would you I respect a—”
“Mr. Morell, what else is in my grandfather’s will.” This time I cut her off, not wanting to hear whatever insult was going to come from her mouth. I didn’t have the strength…I didn’t think I ever would.
“It’s very straightforward. Anything he did not leave to his charities, foundations, and a Mr. Malachi Lord, is now entrusted to you, Ms. Noëlle.”
He tried to show me the documents but she snatched them from his hands and read through them. “You can’t be serious! She’s just a child! She knows nothing about how to handle all of this.”
“I know more than you. And what I don’t know I’m willing to learn,” I said to her as I reached down and picked up my bag. I rose from the chair and regarded her. “If you want your flat and your allowance back, mother, try acting like a decent human being first.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?!”
“Thank you, Mr. Morell. We’ll continue this later.” I shook his hand and walked to the door before she screeched at me.
“DON’T YOU DARE WALK OUT! NOT BEFORE YOU FIX THIS—!”
“GRANDPA DIED!” I yelled at her. “HE DIED! HE’S GONE! And you’re making a scene over his money? I didn’t want to believe that you could be so selfish but…whatever. You just keep being the miserable person you are; I’ll make sure you still have money. I’ll take you of you…but first, I need to take care of myself. The worse you make me feel the harder it will be for you to get anything for me.”
And because she couldn’t help herself. Because she was a truly miserable person, she had to get one last insult in.
“I am your mother. Watch how you speak to me. I could have dumped you in a ghetto park and you wouldn’t have been anyone with anything. You should be grateful to me. I could always sue you and get at least—”
And because I was, in fact, her daughter, I couldn’t stop myself either. “The day you tried to kill me was the day I no longer owed you anything. And please, go ahead and bring more lawyers into this, I know how to tell a story and crying is my specialty. Who do you think will win?”
I left without waiting for her reply.
Was this my life now?
If so, I’d give it all up… I can’t do that. It wasn’t mine to give up. It was my grandfather’s. Everything he’d devoted himself to. And now I’d devote myself to it as well.
What else could I do?
NINE MONTHS LATER
15. THE FATE OF THE FATED
ESTHER
“Ma’am?”
I glanced up from my desk to see her standing in front of me with two thick stacks of proofs in her cream-colored hands.
“Shannon, you were my boss once, you don’t have to call me ma’am.” I smiled as I sat back in my grandpa’s—my chair. I extended my arms for the books. “Please sit. How is your son?”
“Terrible,” she frowned as she handed me the stacks. “He’s so cute I hate leaving him in the morning.”
