His expression changed.
“Lucky?”
“With Grandma.”
The father slowly turned toward his wife.
She immediately defended herself.
“That is not what I meant.”
The girl’s eyes filled.
“You said Grandma always liked me better and that Tyler got nothing.”
The father’s face became cold.
His wife snapped:
“I said your mother favored her.”
“My mother is dead.”
The father’s voice was quiet.
“Do not turn her into an argument over a phone.”
His wife’s eyes flashed.
“And that is exactly what I mean.”
“What?”
“Your family always does this.”
The father stared.
“Does what?”
“Makes her sacred.”
She pointed toward the girl.
“Everything revolves around her.”
“Her grief.”
“Her school.”
“Her grandmother.”
“Her future.”
“My son gets whatever is left.”
The father looked toward the staircase.
His stepson was somewhere upstairs.
Probably hearing everything.
He lowered his voice.
“This is not about your son.”
“It is always about my son.”
“No.”
“This is about you demanding money from a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“She has more than enough.”
“It is not yours.”
“Neither is half the money you spend on her.”
The father’s expression changed again.
“Careful.”
The wife laughed bitterly.
“See?”
“One word against her and suddenly I’m the enemy.”
The daughter pressed herself closer to the wall.
Her father noticed.
He noticed the way she watched the stepmother.
Not anger anymore.
Calculation.
Fear.
He turned toward his daughter.
“Did she hit you?”
The stepmother immediately said:
“No.”
The girl said nothing.
The father looked at the hand still pressed against her cheek.
“Take your hand down.”
She hesitated.
Then lowered it.
Her cheek was red.
Not badly swollen.
No broken skin.
But unmistakably flushed on one side.
The father stopped breathing for a moment.
His wife spoke quickly.
“She got in my face.”
The daughter stared.
“I was trying to take Grandma’s envelope back.”
“You grabbed me.”
“Because you stole it.”
“Enough!”
The father’s voice filled the hallway.
Both women went silent.