“Yes, I suppose so… for now. Maybe I don’t actually have to sell it just yet. Maybe there’s another way to solve my problems.”
She stopped talking abruptly, staring at Kiana with obvious expectation.
Darius was watching her too now, his eyes intense.
Both of them were waiting—waiting for the daughter-in-law to offer to help, to say something like, “Don’t sell your home. Here, take some money. Live in peace.”
Kiana finished her tea in one long swallow and stood up.
“I’m going to change out of my work clothes. It’s been a long day.”
She left the kitchen feeling their two gazes burning into her back—one bewildered and frustrated, one angry and calculating.
In the bedroom, she closed the door firmly and sat on the edge of the bed.
Her hands were trembling slightly, not from fear but from cold, quiet, grinding rage.
They wanted her money. It was completely obvious now.
Ms. Sterling hadn’t come over for tea and pleasant conversation.
She’d come to scope out the situation carefully, to see if her daughter-in-law would succumb to guilt and pity.
And Darius was fully in on it, sitting right there silent and complicit, waiting.
Kiana stood up and moved quietly to the door, opening it just a crack.
The voices in the kitchen started up again, quieter now, more urgent and muffled.
She pressed her ear close to the gap and listened intently.
“She won’t give us anything,” Ms. Sterling hissed venomously. “She’s greedy and selfish.”
“Mom, don’t say that. She’s just cautious with money,” Darius muttered weakly.
“Cautious.”
She snorted with contempt.
“She has over a hundred thousand dollars just sitting there doing nothing, and I’m rotting away on Social Security, barely surviving.”
“Quiet. She’ll hear us,” Darius warned in a harsh whisper.
“Let her hear. I don’t care anymore. I raised you completely by myself your whole life. Your father left when you were only three years old. I worked two jobs for years, and now you marry this cold piece of work and you can’t even help your own mother properly.”
