When my grandfather entered the ward where I had just given birth, I expected to hear kind words or jokes. But his first remark made my heart skip a beat.
‘My girl, aren’t you short of the 250,000 I transfer every month?’
I froze in bewilderment.
‘What… money, Grandpa?’ I whispered, feeling the world around me collapse.
At that moment, my husband Mark and his mother Vivian entered the room, laden with purchases from expensive boutiques, laughing until they saw my grandfather.
Suddenly, their faces darkened with fear. Vivian froze like a statue.
Grandfather looked at them, and everyone understood that he already knew everything.
‘I have only one question,’ he said coldly. ‘Where is the money I send to Claire?’
The air in the room became palpably heavy.
‘Money?’ Mark trembled, holding the shopping bag. ‘What money?’
Grandfather looked down with imperturbable pride.
‘Don’t try to fool me. My granddaughter hasn’t received a penny, and I can see why.’
The silence became unbearable — even my newborn daughter seemed to sense the growing storm.
Then Grandpa said something that made me tremble:
‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about your schemes?’
The ice cracked
The room smelled sharply of medicine and spilled coffee. I sat with my daughter in my arms and didn’t understand why my heart was pounding so hard.
Mark was silent, his teeth clenched. Vivian looked like she’d been caught red-handed.
‘Edward, please, could this be a mistake?’ she said, nervously twirling the gold chain around her neck.
‘A mistake?’ Grandfather chuckled. ‘That’s strange, because banks don’t make mistakes three years in a row.’
Three years.
He had been coming with money for three years.
And at that moment, I noticed a drop of sweat rolling down Mark’s temple.
‘Claire, you didn’t know?’ Grandfather looked at me intently, and there was more pain than anger in his eyes.
‘Never,’ I pressed my lips together. ‘Not a single transfer. Mark said we needed to save money because he was having problems at work. I… I believed him.’
The word ‘believed’ died inside me.
Grandfather looked at Mark again.
‘You told my granddaughter she needed to save money when you were earning £250,000 a month?’
Mark couldn’t take it anymore.
‘It’s… it’s all Vivian’s fault!’ he blurted out, as if looking for an excuse.
Vivian stared at him:
‘What?! Mark, you…’
Grandfather raised his hand, and silence froze us again.
‘Go on,’ he said in an icy voice. ‘I’m extremely interested.’
Mark swallowed, preparing to answer.
‘I… wanted to surprise her… save up… invest… We thought it would be better.’
‘Better for whom?’ asked Grandfather. ‘For my granddaughter, who wore the same coat for three winters in a row? Or for you two, who just came back from the shop with purchases exceeding the cost of her car?’
Vivian turned pale.
Mark lowered his eyes.
Grandfather continued speaking, approaching him.
‘I warned your mother, Mark. I told her at the wedding: don’t interfere in my granddaughter’s finances. But it seems you weren’t interested.’
He sighed.
‘Did you think she would never find out?’
Hidden secrets
‘Grandfather,’ I approached him, ‘perhaps we can discuss this later, when everything has settled down?’
But he shook his head.
‘No, my dear. You have been deceived for too long. And today it ends.’
Mark tried to object.
‘Edward, let’s not dramatise. We’re family. Money is just money.’
‘Is it?’ Grandfather leaned closer. ‘Then why did you hide it? Why didn’t you tell Claire? Why did you spend it on yourselves?’
‘We…’ Mark began.
But Vivian interrupted:
“All right! Yes, we used some of the money. But we were going to pay it back! I thought… Claire doesn’t know how to handle large sums of money. She’s trusting and naive…
Grandfather frowned:
‘So she became a victim, including you.’
And at that moment, I realised:
All these years, I was told we had no money.
But there was Mark’s new car.
There were Vivian’s expensive purchases.
There were their ‘little joys.’
‘Claire,’ Grandfather looked at me, “I sent twenty-eight transfers. Each one for 250,000. That’s seven million dollars. Seven.
My head spun.
I existed by counting every penny.
Mark made me choose between medicine and new shoes.
Vivian insisted that a child was not what we needed — we couldn’t afford it.
But we could afford it. We always could.
Just not for me.
The evidence gathered
Grandfather went to the window and took out his phone.
‘You know that I don’t make impulsive decisions,’ he said. ‘And before coming here, I made a phone call.’
Mark tensed.
‘I requested a statement of account,’ Grandfather continued. ‘And what do you think was there?’
He turned to us.
‘All the transfers went to the same account, registered in the name of Vivian Randolph.’
I raised my head sharply.