Chapter 5

Daniel's mother could barely wait to get home and share what she had learned.

The moment she stepped through the front door, however, the noise hit her first.

Daniel and Vanessa were both in the living room, and Vanessa sat rigidly on the sofa with the child in her arms.

The boy had been screaming for almost an hour, and her patience had worn down to nothing.

"Why won't he stop crying?" she complained, bouncing him with increasing roughness.

Daniel glanced up from his phone. "Did you feed him?"

"Of course I did!"

"Then I don't know what to tell you," he muttered.

Vanessa shot him a resentful look.

The house was in chaos. Dirty dishes had been piling up in the kitchen since morning, clothes lay scattered across the living room floor, and the trash still hadn't been taken out.

Charity would have handled all of it before anyone even noticed. Now that she was gone, the house had collapsed into disorder within a single day.

Vanessa had never done housework in her life, and neither had Daniel's mother.

Both women had always treated Charity like a servant who happened to live under their roof.

The child let out another piercing wail, and Vanessa's face twisted. "Can somebody please make him stop?"

Daniel's mother took one look at the wreckage around her and her temper flared. "Why is this place so filthy?"

"Then clean it," Vanessa snapped.

"Why should I clean it?"

"Because Charity isn't here anymore."

The moment the words left Vanessa's mouth, silence fell over the room.

They had all grown so used to Charity handling everything that none of them had stopped to think about what would happen when she actually left.

The older woman stared at the crusted dishes, then at the screaming child, and her anger sharpened. "That woman has no sense of responsibility at all."

Vanessa rolled her eyes. "She's the one who wanted the divorce."

Before the argument could grow any uglier, Daniel's mother remembered the news burning inside her, and her whole expression changed. "I have something to tell you both."

Daniel looked up. "What is it?"

"Charity bought a house."

Vanessa went still. Daniel frowned. "What do you mean, she bought a house?"

"She bought one across the street, and she paid for it in full."

The room fell quiet again, but this time the silence felt different. Vanessa was the first to speak, her voice barely above a whisper. "She bought a house?"

"Yes."

"With what money?"

Daniel's mother gave her a strange look. "Obviously, she has money."

Daniel sat up straighter. "How much?"

"I don't know."

Just like that, the irritation that had filled the room evaporated.

Nobody cared about the dirty dishes anymore, and nobody heard the crying child. Every thought had turned toward Charity.

Daniel's mind began to race. If she could afford to buy a house outright, she had far more money than he had ever realized.

Perhaps she had savings he knew nothing about. Perhaps she had investments.

Perhaps her grandparents had left her something. Whatever the source, he wanted to know exactly how much she had.

He leaned back and rubbed his chin. "There's no way she bought a house with her salary alone."

"Then find out where the money came from," Vanessa urged, her eyes bright.

He nodded slowly.

"And even if she does have money," his mother added sharply, "she still owes this family."

Daniel looked at her. "She divorced me."

"So what?" she scoffed. "You were married for years. She can't just forget everything because she signed a few papers."

Vanessa tapped a finger against her arm, thinking. "Maybe you should talk to a lawyer."

He turned toward her. "A lawyer?"

"Yes. Find out if there's anything you can do. If she really has that much money, we shouldn't let her walk away with it."

His eyes narrowed. For the first time, he began to see Charity differently.

He had believed she was only throwing a tantrum, but now he wondered how much he could take from her. If she had bought a house outright, there had to be a reason.

Maybe she had been hiding money from him throughout their entire marriage.

The thought made his skin crawl with unease, but it also filled him with a hard, hungry determination.

"We'll talk to a lawyer tomorrow," he said.

"Good," his mother replied at once.

None of them noticed that Leo had started crying again until the sound rose to a shriek.

Vanessa finally looked down at him, exhausted and exasperated. "Why are you crying again?"

The boy only wailed louder, and her face turned ugly. "Charity always knew how to deal with this," she burst out.

The words escaped before she could stop them, and the silence that followed was thick.

For the first time, all three of them were beginning to understand just how much Charity had done for them.

But instead of feeling grateful, they were already scheming to get her back.

********

Across the street, Charity was far too busy to spare them a thought.

Her new house was filling up with boxes. She had spent most of the day buying supplies, and food came first.

Rice, flour, pasta, canned meat, canned vegetables, beans, cooking oil, salt, sugar, powdered milk, biscuits, dried fruit, instant noodles, spices, and every other food that would keep for years now sat stacked in neat towers.

She had bought bottled water as well, though she knew it would never be enough on its own.

The large tanks and purification equipment she had ordered would soon be installed, and once the renovations were done, she would have enough water stored to last a very long time.

Medicine went into the cart, followed by first aid supplies, batteries, flashlights, candles, portable fans, cooling equipment, cleaning products, gas cylinders, cooking tools, and every daily necessity she could think of.

Each item had a purpose. Nothing was there by accident.

She stood in the middle of the storage room, running her finger down her list.

There was still more to buy. More generators. More solar batteries.

More fuel. Several refrigerators and freezers to keep meat and other perishables safe. In her last life, she had watched food vanish from the market within hours, and she would never let that happen to her again.

This time, she wanted enough to last for years.

Her phone rang, breaking her concentration.

She glanced at the screen. Daniel.

She stared at his name for a long moment. She could guess why he was calling.

He must have heard about the house, and maybe he had finally realized she wasn't as helpless as he had always believed.

Her thumb hovered over the button, and for a moment she nearly let it ring.

Then she changed her mind. There was still something she wanted to witness, something she wouldn't get to see if she cut them off completely too soon.

She wanted to know how long it would take for Daniel, Vanessa, and his mother to turn on one another once there was no food, no electricity, and no clean water.

So why not play along a little longer?

She drew a slow breath, and answered.

"Hello?"