“It does not belong to you,” I replied calmly even though my heart beat faster.
“That marriage was fake and we will challenge the will,” another one added while staring at the baby sleeping in the crib beside the sofa.
Soon rumors spread across town with cruel speed because people whispered that I was a gold digger who had manipulated an old man for property. Fortunately many neighbors who had known Harold for years refused to stay silent and began collecting letters, photographs, and personal stories that proved how clear minded he had been when he chose to marry me.
At the court hearing my attorney presented a video that Harold had recorded months earlier while sitting in his favorite armchair near the patio.
His voice filled the courtroom speakers as he spoke calmly.
“I married her because I wanted to and that child is my son because I decided he would be part of my family,” he said firmly. “I did not come into this world to leave money behind because I came here to leave love and a family.”
The judge announced that the final ruling would be delivered two weeks later, and those fourteen days felt longer than any period of my life because I lived with the constant fear that the house could be taken and my son might even lose his father’s last name. On the night before the verdict I received an anonymous phone call from someone who refused to identify himself.
“If you want to avoid a scandal involving DNA tests then accept a financial settlement and walk away quietly,” the voice warned before hanging up.
The words chilled my bl00d because the caller was clearly suggesting that my son might not be Harold’s biological child, and I spent the entire night awake while the phrase DNA scandal echoed inside my mind like a dark prophecy.
My name is Melissa Grant, I am twenty nine years old, and for months the entire neighborhood had watched my life with the mixture of curiosity and judgment that appears whenever a young woman marries a man old enough to be her grandfather.