After My Stepson Threw Hot Soup on Me on Christmas Eve, I Bankrupted His Entire Family Chapter 01
I raised my stepson for ten full years.
Even though he had never really treated me like his stepmother, I had still covered all his expenses without complaint.
But on Christmas Eve, in front of the whole family at dinner, Brandon Miller looked at me and said, “Old hag, I want that apartment of yours in the old downtown district — the one in the good school zone. Sign it over to me. I’m using it as my marital home.”
I frowned.
“That apartment is for my retirement and for Lily’s college. Look at a different place. I can help you with part of the down payment.”
He slammed his silverware down.
“What’s a down payment, even? You want me to start working and carry a thirty-year mortgage?”
“If you don’t sign it over to me, I’ll get Dad to divorce you.”
I instinctively glanced at my husband beside me.
Robert Miller lowered his head and said nothing.
For half a minute, he sat in silence.
And in that silence, it became clear to me.
This carefully laid-out Christmas dinner had never been a family meal.
It was a setup. They’d been planning it for a while.
I set down my fork, about to speak, when Robert pulled a property deed out of his bag and pushed it straight into Brandon’s hands.
I froze.
It was the old deed.
A while back, during the old district’s redevelopment compensation registration, I had hunted everywhere for that deed without success. In the end I’d had the registrar issue a replacement.
I never imagined Robert had already taken it long before.
Only then did Robert turn to me.
“Olivia, when you married me, you said we were a family. You said your properties would be the safety net for this household. Brandon’s getting married. He’s my only son. Of course I have to help him first.”
Brandon took the deed, his eyes lighting up.
“Thanks, Dad. I knew you cared about me.”
His fiancée, Madison, smiled too and clung to his arm.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Miller. Since the marital home’s settled, we can go down to city hall the day after Christmas and register the marriage.”
I looked at the family in front of me and slowly curled my hands into fists.
I had raised Brandon for ten years.
From cleaning up his messes in middle school to wiring him three thousand dollars a month through college, I had never once stopped paying for him.
Yet in all those years, he had never called me Mom even once.
Even now, asking me for something, all he could call me was “old hag.”
Not even Auntie.
“No,” I said. “Not that apartment.”
“That’s a school-zone apartment downtown in the old district. Yes, I once said it could be a safety net for this family. But that was only as long as I was still part of this family.”
“Besides, that apartment can be rented out to pay Lily’s college tuition.”
Lily was my biological daughter.
She had just turned eighteen and was in her senior year of high school.
This was exactly when she needed money most.
The second Brandon heard Lily’s name, his face darkened.
“She’s a girl. What good is a fancy college going to do her? She’s never going to earn money for the Miller family anyway.”
“And I’ll take care of Dad in his old age. What do we need your crappy apartment for?”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“You failed seven classes in college, changed jobs three times in your first six months out of school, and you still can’t support yourself. How exactly are you planning to take care of your father?”
Slam.
Brandon brought his hand down on the table hard enough to send soup sloshing in the bowls.
Robert grabbed my arm.
“Olivia, Brandon’s marriage is a big deal. Lily’s school can wait. She can apply for student loans. She can work part-time. Plenty of kids put themselves through college that way.”
So my daughter was supposed to take out loans for school while my apartment became his son’s marital home?
That was the moment the last bit of warmth in me went cold.
Then the front door opened.
Lily came home from studying at the library and froze when she took in the dining room.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?”
Brandon saw her, and something ugly flashed in his eyes.
“Perfect timing. The useless deadweight is back.”
He waved the deed in his hand.
“Just so you know — this place is mine now.”
“You don’t get a room there. Go live in a school dorm if you want a roof. Stop being an eyesore in this house. Looking at you makes me sick.”
