I opened the door, my heart pounding, not knowing what to expect. But I certainly didn’t expect this.
Susan, Jason’s mother, greeted me with a fake sweetness that made my skin crawl.
“Alice, dear,” she said, her voice dripping with insincerity, “We’re so sorry to hear about Jason. It must be so hard for you, living here all alone.”
I nodded, too stunned to speak. What could I say? She wasn’t here for Jason. She never had been.
Charles, his father, wasted no time. “We need to talk about the house,” he said, his tone businesslike and cold. “Jason was our son, and now this house should be ours.”
The words hit me like a punch to the stomach. “What do you mean, ‘yours’? Jason bought this house, and I’ve been paying the mortgage. It’s in my name.”
That’s when their lawyer, who had been standing silently on the sidelines, spoke up.
“Legally speaking,” he began smoothly, “as Jason’s next of kin, his parents have a rightful claim to the property. Without a will, the law generally favors the immediate family.”
“You think you can just waltz in here, after all this time, and take his house?” I asked, my voice shaking with anger. “You didn’t care about him when he was alive. And now you want what was his?”
Susan’s expression hardened, her facade cracking just slightly. “Alice, we are his family. Blood is thicker than water. Jason would have wanted us to have this house. To keep it in the family.”
I felt anger rising within me, but I took a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm.
