I asked her if she was joking. Her frown told me she wasn't. "Every last penny, gone," She said. "And that's not the worst of it." She paused a moment before continuing as she leaned across the table.
"She got the house, all of his belongings. His entire estate."
"Explain to me how this happened." I said as held my cup of coffee sinking into the booth.
"Somehow or another over the least few months she was able to go in and convince Dad that everything should be left to her. She got him to change the will. Sign his name to it and everything."
I took a big gulp of my steaming hot coffee hoping that it might warm me up, but it didn't. The news of what Janice was telling me had made me turn stone cold. That coffee could have been 1,000,000 degrees and I still would have sat their frozen.
I didn't know what to say, so I just sat there starring at the table. How could Kara have done this? How could she be so selfish? Adding up everything, Dad was worth about $650,000. Take out an inheritance tax and the three of us would have been left with about $165,000 a piece. Plenty for me, plenty for Janice. Obviously not enough for Kara. She needed the whole amount for herself.
I thought to myself how Dad would never have stood for this in his right mind. He had always insisted that the three of us would divide everything he had worked for into a third. His mind had to have been completely gone in order for Kara to have been able to pull this off.
Janice began talking again, but I wasn't listening. I was too busy thinking about other things. I thought of Dad's military valor. The medals he had earned from Vietnam and some of the other things he had brought back from the war. I'm sure some of it was probably worth something, but neither Janice or I had ever concerned ourselves with that. We both knew how important that stuff was to Dad and we both intended on keeping our promise that as long as we were alive, it would be kept safe. Kara would sell it the second she got offered a good price for it. I thought of Dad's thoroughbred hounds Rusty and Ralph. At his age he had no business buying two puppies the way he did two years ago, but none of us knew how sick he was or how quickly he'd go. Kara didn't care if they went to a pound or to an Asian meat market as long as the price was right.
"I wish we would have done this to her."
I looked up to make eye contact with Janice. She continued.
"I'd have been fine with each of us getting half and leaving her out of it."
It was a fair thought, but something neither one of us could have done. Kara could have screwed us 100 times over before either of us would have ever done the same thing to her. A good conscious will protect anyone and everyone before it'll ever look out for itself. Dad had made it clear to the three of us that he wanted all three of us to benefit from the inheritance. As much as neither Janice or I could stand Kara, both of us would have always made sure she got her third.
"Is there anyway we can fight this?" I already knew the answer but I asked the question anyway.
"I don't see how," Janice answered. "He changed it. He signed it."
"Yeah," I said. "But he wasn't in his right mind. The man was dying of Alzheimer's. She manipulated him and took advantage of him."
Janice took a deep breath.
"Maybe," She said. "But I imagine we'd have to get an attorney involved. I don't have the money for that."
"Neither do I," I said.
Janice and I starred at one another for a second. I didn't know what she was thinking or feeling, but if I had to guess I would say she was thinking and feeling the same way I was. Both of us looked at the other hoping that one of us would have an answer to all of this. Both of us disappointed in ourselves that neither of us did. I wanted to be there for her. She wanted to be there for me. Yet all we offered one another was the solace of knowing how much this sucked and how unfair it was.
Janice was in a position to where this money could have really helped her out. Her husband died unexpectedly in an accident two years ago & she's been struggling and scrounging to raise her two boys ever since. $165K would give her a nice little nest egg to stop worrying so much and get back on her feet. I've been struggling my whole life. I'll be 50 in three years and I ain't got shit to my name. I live in an apartment and the only thing I own is a car that is falling apart. Two other guys I work with are thinking of opening up their own mechanic shop. I was gonna take $50,000 of my inheritance and go into business with them. Now I can't. This was finally going to be my opportunity to make something out of myself. Get somewhere in life and finally start building towards my future.
Kara took that from me and she took it from Janice too. It'd be one thing if she were desperately hurting for money but she isn't. At least if she really needed it, then maybe I could forgive her. Maybe I could understand what she's done. Kara married a guy for his money years ago and then got the poor bastard for everything he was worth in the divorce settlement. If there be an advertisement for prenuptial agreements, it is my sister Kara. She lives in a nice cottage up in the Hills, already able to sit on her ass doing as she pleases for the rest of her life. She doesn't need $500,000. She doesn't even need $165,000.
Two hours ago Janice and I sat in Church at the First Reformatory in Glenhauser listening to a sermon from Pastor Smith Jeffries. He spoke of the importance of learning to love our enemy. If that's what I'm supposed to do, then call me defiant. I'm sure that it's probably a sin to even think of Kara as my enemy. I don't love her though. Hell, I don't even like her. I don't want to hate her, but I think if I have to be honest, I do.
To take it all. To trick our mentally ill father who was dying of Alziehmer's changing his will and having him sign everything over to her. Maybe if it was just her and I, then maybe I could forgive that. But Janice is getting screwed in this ordeal too and I can't look past that. Wrong as it may be, I cannot look past that. I won't look past that.
"I was going to put away $100,000 of that money for Todd & Tad's college." The hopelessness in Janice's demeaner was contagious.
"More coffee?" The waitress had returned holding the pot in her hand as she awaited my answer.
"Yes," I answered. "Thank you."
She poured the cup to the top.
"Sugars?"
"Na," I said, "I take my coffee like I take my life...black."
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