Chapter 5: Pay Me

After my lawyer sent a demand letter for the fifty thousand dollars Piper owed, she was the first to crack.

Dozens of messages flooded my phone.

You sent a lawyer after me?

You said that money wasn’t urgent!

June, are you trying to ruin me?

I replied with two words.

Pay me.

The phone rang immediately.

I let it ring.

A minute later, another call came through. Then another.

Piper had spent years learning exactly how to make people feel guilty for asking anything from her. She would cry when she wanted forgiveness, become sweet when she wanted a favor, and turn vicious when she realized neither was working.

This time, I wasn’t interested in any of it.

A voicemail appeared.

June, please. We need to talk like adults. You know I didn’t mean anything by borrowing that money. I thought you were helping me because you cared about the family.

I deleted it.

Then Grant called.

I answered only because I wanted to hear what excuse he had prepared.

June, what are you doing?

Collecting a debt.

You know Piper can’t just produce fifty thousand dollars.

Then she shouldn’t have borrowed fifty thousand dollars.

He exhaled sharply.

She thought you were giving it to her.

Then show me where I said that.

Silence.

I could almost picture him standing in the kitchen of my house, staring at the same countertops I had chosen and paid for.

June, you’re angry. I understand that. But you’re taking this too far.

No, Grant. I’m finally taking things exactly as far as they should have gone twelve years ago.

His voice hardened.

We’re talking about your family.

I laughed quietly.

You made it very clear who your family is when you raised a glass to Piper in my backyard and called her your real family.

That wasn’t meant to hurt you.

It doesn’t matter what you meant. You did it.

He didn’t answer.

I continued, I am not paying Sadie’s tuition anymore.

His silence this time was longer.

You can’t do that.

I already did.

June, she’s your daughter in everything but blood.

That sentence hit me harder than I expected.

For twelve years, I had wanted exactly that recognition.

I had packed lunches, attended parent-teacher meetings, sat beside hospital beds, bought birthday presents, stayed awake through exams, and held Sadie while she cried over boys who didn’t deserve her tears.

But when it mattered, I wasn’t her mother.

I was just the woman who paid the bills.

She’s your daughter, I said softly. Not mine.

Grant’s voice dropped.

You don’t mean that.

I do.

I ended the call.

For several minutes, I sat completely still in my new apartment.

Then my laptop chimed.

An email from my former boss.

He wanted me back.

Not as the employee who had transferred to Savannah twelve years ago. Not as someone’s partner. Not as Sadie’s stand-in mother.

He wanted me back as the consultant I had once been.

The compensation package was better than anything I had earned in Savannah.

I stared at the offer for a long time before typing my response.

I accept.

For the first time since watching that wedding on my phone, I smiled.

That evening, another notification appeared in my inbox.

It was from my lawyer.

The subject line read: Evidence Regarding the Wedding.

I opened the email.

There were several security-camera clips attached.

My lawyer had subpoenaed copies from the property system before my access was revoked.

I watched the first video.

Piper and Sadie were standing in my bedroom three days before the wedding.

Piper was holding my mother’s dress.

Are you sure about this? Sadie asked.

Piper laughed.

June won’t know until it’s too late.

The video continued.

Sadie looked toward the camera.

Dad thinks she’s coming home on Sunday.

Exactly, Piper replied. By then, I’ll already be his wife.

I stopped the video.

My hands had gone cold.

There was another clip.

This one showed Grant entering the room.

He looked at the dress in Piper’s hands.

She’ll be furious when she sees it, he said.

Piper smiled.

Only if you let her stay.

Grant didn’t argue.

He simply looked away.

Then he said something that made my stomach drop.

After the wedding, she won’t have anywhere to go.

I replayed that sentence twice.

They hadn’t improvised this.

They had planned it.

The wedding. The guesthouse. The removal of my access. The deed waiting for my signature.

Everything.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the folder on my desktop.

Reckoning.

I opened it and dragged the new videos inside.

Then I added one more file.

A copy of the email Grant had sent me about transferring my house to Sadie.

Under the file name, I typed a note.

They planned to remove me from my own home.

My phone buzzed again.

This time, it was Sadie.

June, Dad says you’re really cutting me off.

Another message appeared.

How could you do this after everything we’ve been through?

I stared at the screen.

Then I typed the first honest answer I had given her in twelve years.

Ask your real family.

I blocked her number.

Then I closed the laptop.

Tomorrow, I would walk back into the career I had sacrificed for them.

But tonight, I finally understood something.

They hadn’t mistaken my kindness for weakness.

They had built their entire lives around it.

And now that kindness was gone.