After Dad’s funeral, my family tossed my belongings onto the lawn, changed the locks, and sneered, “This house belongs to us now—get out!” I stayed silent. But when the notary spoke, their faces drained of color: the house wasn’t in the will… because it already belonged to…
When I was six, my mom left. Ran off with some guy, leaving a note saying she “couldn’t do the family thing anymore.” So, it was just me and Dad for three years. He tried his best, and we had a good routine.
Then, when I was nine, she came back, crying and begging, with a little girl in tow. A DNA test confirmed the kid, my sister Emma, was Dad’s. He forgave my mother, they got remarried, and I thought maybe things would go back to normal.
Boy, was I wrong.
From the moment Mom moved back in, I became a ghost in my own house. All her attention, all of Dad’s attention, went to Emma. I was excluded from everything. When I graduated valedictorian, they showed up but left early because Emma had a soccer game.
The day I got a full scholarship to college across the state was the best day of my life. After graduation, I came home, figuring I could stay for a few months while I job-hunted.
“You can stay two weeks,” Dad said. “Emma’s 16 now. She needs her privacy.”
“You’re an adult now, Sheila,” Mom added. “Time to stand on your own two feet.”
I crashed at a friend’s place, found a job, and built my career from scratch. I was done with them.
Ten years later, my assistant knocked on my office door. “Sheila, there’s someone here to see you. Says he’s your father.”
I took the elevator down, and there he was. But he looked terrible, like he’d aged fifteen years. He was thin, pale, and frail.
“I have cancer,” he said finally as we sat in a cafe. “Pancreatic. Doctors say I’ve got maybe two or three years.”
Despite everything, he was still my dad. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “Is there anything I can do?”
He took a deep breath. “The house. I’m behind on the mortgage payments. The bank’s threatening to foreclose. I want you to buy it from me. Pay off what I owe, and it’s yours. That way, at least it stays in the family, and your mom and Emma don’t lose their home.”
I stared at him. The man who kicked me out was now asking me to save their house. My first instinct was to laugh in his face. But then I thought about it. I’d been looking to buy a house, and this was a smart investment. The property values had skyrocketed.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Two months later, it was official. I owned the house I grew up in. Mom and Emma never knew.
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