He Wanted to Sell Our House for Her Trip, I Bought It Instead Chapter 09
After Derek died, Tiffany didn’t come back.
She stayed overseas, sticking to her rich man.
Until the old man died. His kids kicked her out.
Not a single dollar.
The day she got deported, I went to the airport to pick up a friend. I saw her from a distance.
She’d lost a lot of weight. Looked ten years older. No designer bags. No designer clothes.
Just a pilled old jacket, like a refugee.
Brenda was put in a nursing home a month after Derek died.
No money. No house. No son.
A social worker helped arrange it.
I heard that on her first day there, she sat outside the entrance all afternoon. No one came to see her.
Later, Tiffany came back. She visited Brenda once.
Not to take her out. To ask for money.
“Mom, do you have any money left? Something happened overseas. I need cash.”
Brenda looked at the daughter she’d spoiled her whole life. Finally, she cried.
“Teetee, I don’t have anything. You took it all.”
“Then go ask Clara for it! You’re Leo’s grandmother!”
Teetee left the nursing home and never came back.
Word was she started working at a nightclub. Then word was she caught some disease. No cure.
The day Brenda heard the news, she fell in the nursing home. Never got up again.
I went to see her once.
Not out of pity. To make things clear.
“I’ll take care of Leo. But he’s not a Vance anymore. I already changed his last name to mine.”
Brenda lay in the bed and grabbed my hand.
“Clara, I was wrong. I just want to see Leo … just once …”
“No.”
I pulled my hand back and walked out.
Her sobs followed me.
I didn’t look back.
After the money cleared, I bought a small house.
Two bedrooms, one bath, with a little balcony.
Leo had his own room.
I got him a car-shaped bed. He bounced on it for an hour, grinning.
“Mommy! Is this really my bed?”
“Yeah, baby. It’s yours.”
He flopped onto it, buried his face in the pillow, and said in a muffled voice,
“Mommy, I’m so happy.”
My nose stung. I crouched down and hugged him.
“Mommy’s happy too.”
After the condemnation story went viral, people at my old company wouldn’t stop talking. So I quit.
The new company didn’t know anything about me.
No one knew what I’d been through. No one knew about the divorce. No one knew what I had in the bank.
They only knew I was a regular new hire. Hardworking. Quiet.
Six months later, I got promoted to manager.
My mom helped with Leo—cooked meals, picked him up from preschool.
I life was plain. But solid.
One day, I got a letter from the nursing home.
I opened it. Brenda’s handwriting, shaky and crooked, like a child’s.
[Clara, I know you haven’t forgiven me. I just want to see Leo. Just once …]
I stayed quiet for a long time. Then I asked Leo what he thought. I took him to see Brenda one last time.
The cheapest plot wasn’t expensive. I arranged a simple service for her.
Three years together, and my son and I never got a shred of care from that family. The connection was over.
Those people. Those things. All in the past.
From now on, it’s just me and Leo.
And this house full of sunlight.