For forty-two years, Ernest had been my safe harbor. We met in Spring Creek—two poor boys with small hopes. His hands were always smudged with grease, and his shy smile stole my heart instantly. We built a life inside a tiny two-room home with a tin roof that leaked when it rained. But we were happy. Truly happy. Poor, but rich in love.
When our sons arrived—first Charles, then Henry—I thought joy might burst out of me. Ernest adored them, teaching them to fish, to repair things, to imagine worlds through bedtime stories. We were a family. Or so I believed.
“I’m not spending my life getting greasy like you, Dad,” he said – words that stung my husband deeply.
Both boys moved to the city, got rich in real estate, and slowly transformed into strangers wearing expensive suits. Their rare visits became awkward encounters where luxury cars parked outside our humble home like insults. They spoke of investments, opportunities, and hinted again and again that we should sell our house.
“Jasmine and I will need help when we start a family,” Charles said one evening. “Selling the house now would be… like an early inheritance.”
He wanted his inheritance while we were still alive.
“Son,” Ernest replied gently but firmly, “everything we have will be yours when we’re gone. But while we’re here, the decisions are ours.”
Later that night, Ernest turned to me with a troubled look I had never seen.
“Something’s off, Margot. This isn’t just ambition. There’s something darker here.”
He was right. I just didn’t know how right.
The “acci:dent” occured on a Tuesday. Memorial Hospital called.
My neighbor had to drive me – my hands shook too much even to hold the keys.
When I arrived, Charles and Henry were already there. Too quickly, too conveniently.
“Mother,” Charles said, pressing me into a stiff hug, “Father’s hurt. A machine exploded in the workshop.”
