Karen finally turned. Her eyes swept over me like I was a stain on the wallpaper. “Oh, you came.” Her voice was ice. “I thought you were too busy with your little career to bother.”
“She’s my grandmother.”
“She’s my mother.”
Karen turned back to the doctor, dismissing me completely. “As I was saying, Doctor, I’ll need copies of all her medical records.”
I tried again. “Can I see her?”
Karen spoke to the nurse without looking at me. “Only immediate family is allowed in right now. The patient needs rest.”
The nurse glanced between us, confused. “Ma’am, isn’t this-”
“She’s not immediate family.” Karen’s smile was razor-thin. “Not really.”
The words hit like a slap.
Twenty-two years of being raised by Grandma Margaret, and I was not real family. I stood there in that sterile hallway, watching my mother disappear into my grandmother’s room. The door clicked shut behind her, and I realized something that should have been obvious years ago. To Karen Marshall, I had never been her daughter. I was just an inconvenience she had left behind.
I waited until Karen left for lunch. The moment I saw her disappear into the elevator, I slipped into Grandma’s room.
The monitors beeped softly. Tubes and wires connected her frail body to machines that seemed too loud, too harsh for someone so gentle. But when her eyes fluttered open and found mine, they lit up like morning sun.
“My girl.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it was warm. “You came.”
I took her hand. Her skin felt like tissue paper, but her grip was surprisingly strong. “Of course I came, Grandma.”
“Don’t…” She paused, catching her breath. “Don’t believe anything Karen tells you about me. I’m sharper than she thinks.”
I squeezed her hand. “I know.”
Margaret’s eyes drifted toward the window. “The room. William’s room. Remember, Mila. If you ever need answers…”
William. My grandfather, dead before I was born. I had heard stories about his study, but I had never seen a separate room in the mansion.
“Grandma, I don’t understand.”
The door swung open.
Karen stood in the doorway with a paper coffee cup in her hand, her eyes fixed on our intertwined fingers. “What are you doing in here?” Her voice carried that familiar edge of accusation.
“I’m visiting my grandmother.”
Karen turned to the nurse who had followed her in. “You see this? This is exactly what I was worried about.” She gestured toward me. “She’s always trying to isolate my mother from the family. This is textbook elder manipulation.”
The nurse’s expression shifted. She looked at me differently now, with suspicion.
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Grandma Margaret squeezed my hand. A warning. Stay calm.
“I was just leaving,” I said quietly.
As I walked past Karen, she murmured something only I could hear.
“I’ve recorded everything, Mila. Everything.”
