He sipped his drink with irritation, slouched back in his chair, and raised his voice.

“Watch what? You expect me to watch your mom scamming someone?”

“An old lady trying to blackmail a young girl. Rachel, if you’re not embarrassed, I sure as hell am!”

“She wasn’t scamming anyone!”

“David, she raised you for over thirty years. No one knows what kind of woman she was better than you. Don’t insult her memory with this nonsense.”

People nearby began glancing over curiously.

I pushed the document back toward him.

Maybe his indifference rubbed off on me, because even my grief started to dull.

“Raised me? She was your mom. You’ve lost your mind, Rachel.”

I thought I had made myself clear, but he seemed incapable of understanding.

His tone grew harsher, then suddenly softened.

“Rachel, I know it’s hard to accept your mother-in-law’s passing, but you need to be rational.”

“She was old, contributed nothing to the family, and needed your support. She’d long since become a burden.”

“If she were alive, she couldn’t have made $5,000, let alone $50,000.”

“We need to be realistic. If you think fifty thousand is too little, then you name a price.”

Suddenly, it all became clear to me.

I lifted my head and looked at David, my voice edged with scorn.

“So when people get old and can’t earn money anymore, they’re nothing but a burden? They can be slandered, and their lives can be bought off with fifty thousand dollars?”

“David, is that what you think about your mom too?”

“Shut up.”

Like a firecracker set off, David shot to his feet and splashed his drink into my face.

“Rachel, how can you be so ungrateful?”

“I’m trying to think of you, and you dare insult my mom? What kind of daughter-in-law does that?”

“You won’t sign the settlement? Fine. Let me tell you this—if we go to court, you won’t get a dime.”

He snatched the agreement from the table and stormed out of the restaurant.

I watched his back until he disappeared through the door.

His answer was obvious.

I wanted to laugh, but all I felt was pathetic.

My parents hadn’t worked in years.

But that was because they’d each put in over twenty years at the same company before being forced into early retirement during a round of corporate downsizing.

Even after leaving, their pensions never stopped.

I’d urged them to travel, to enjoy their lives, but they refused.

They saved every penny, pouring it all into helping me and David’s household.