I’m a 34-year-old woman and the youngest of five siblings. When I was eight years old, our mother passed away. Years later, our father remarried a woman named Mary. At the time, I was fourteen, and some of my older siblings were already heading off to college. Mary came into the family with strong opinions and tried to control what we were allowed and not allowed to do.
That didn’t sit well with any of us—especially around the time of my oldest brother’s eighteenth birthday. He had just been accepted to a good college and was excited about getting a car. Apparently, she and our father had been discussing getting a new vehicle, but the one she wanted was too expensive, and our dad said no.
Then she found out my brother had bought himself an inexpensive car. She lost it. That’s when my father had to explain to her that we all had inheritances from our mother. She accused him of hiding money, which wasn’t true. He told her our inheritance wasn’t her business. He also explained that when our mother died, she made him executor of our funds.
Mary then tried convincing our father to take money from our inheritance to buy her the car she wanted. But he refused and said he would never cheat his own children. We couldn’t stand her after that. Still, since our father loved her, we tolerated it.
These days, all my siblings live in different states, but I’m the one closest to our father. I visit him more often, and when we’re not able to see each other, we FaceTime daily. Then suddenly, we stopped hearing from him. For days, my siblings and I kept calling without getting any answers. Eventually, one of my sisters flew out to meet me, and we drove to our father’s house.
When we pulled up, Mary’s car was in the driveway. We had been calling her the whole way there with no answer. We walked inside, calling out for our dad. Mary immediately told us to stop yelling in “her” house—even though it’s our father’s house. We asked where he was, and she casually said he’d had a stroke and was in the hospital.
We were beyond shocked. She hadn’t even bothered to let us know. She said he was doing fine, so there was no need. He’d lost some mobility, had speech problems, and suffered mental effects from the stroke, though rehab helped him improve. After that, we lost all remaining respect for her.
Then about a year ago, my dad fell while cleaning the gutters. He broke his leg and dislocated his shoulder. We visited, and everything seemed okay at first. But later, we noticed that he never had the energy to FaceTime anymore. He would only reply briefly by text or on the phone.
Recently, I got a job opportunity that required me to move back home. I decided to surprise him and bought a house nearby. When I went to visit him, I found the locks had been changed. So I called my dad. That’s when he told me he was still in the nursing home!
He said he hadn’t seen Mary at all and she wasn’t even answering his calls. He was only supposed to be there temporarily for rehab and should’ve been discharged months ago. I drove straight there, picked him up, and brought him back home.
Now Mary’s threatening to press charges against me for kidnapping.
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