**A Family Betrayal**
“Nina, what on earth have you done?!” Lena’s voice trembled with outrage. “How could you do this to me? I’m your own sister!”
“And what did you expect?” Nina snapped, not bothering to look up from the documents spread across the kitchen table. “Was I just supposed to sit back and watch you let the house fall apart?”
“Fall apart?” Lena gripped the back of a chair. “I’ve kept this house in order for thirty years! Ever since Mum and Dad passed! Where were you all this time?”
“Oh, here we go—‘Where were you?’” Nina mocked, finally raising her cold eyes. “I was working, actually. Earning my keep. Not mooching off our parents until I was forty.”
The floor seemed to drop from under Lena. She sank into a chair, staring at the papers.
“Is… is that really the will?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Nina said curtly. “Mum left the house to me. Entirely. You’ll have to find somewhere else to live.”
“But… how? When did she even do this? She was ill—in her last months, she could barely think straight!”
“Precisely why I came back. Someone had to handle her affairs while you were busy playing nurse.”
Lena studied her sister’s face, unrecognisable now. Nina had always been tough, practical—but this cruelty? No one saw it coming. Especially not now, barely a month after their mother’s funeral.
“Nina, let’s talk about this properly,” Lena tried, softening her tone. “I get it, you’re entitled to a share. But kicking me out—”
“I’m not kicking you out,” Nina said, stacking the papers neatly. “You can rent a room. At a reasonable rate, of course.”
“Rent a room in our parents’ house?” Lena let out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Perfectly. Ownership is ownership.”
Lena stood and paced the kitchen. Every corner was steeped in memories—the windowsill where Mum’s beloved ficus still sat, the shelf of homemade jam jars they’d filled together every autumn.
“Remember what Mum always said?” Lena asked quietly. “That this house should stay in the family? That we should keep it for our grandchildren?”
“You don’t *have* grandchildren,” Nina shot back. “But I’ve got Max and Alice. It’ll go to them.”
Lena whirled around.
“Your kids couldn’t even be bothered to come to the funeral! I looked after Mum every single day when she was ill!”
“Oh yes, all that *looking after*,” Nina scoffed. “And where did it get her? Dead in a hospital bed.”
The words hit like a knife. Lena had already blamed herself for not spotting the signs, not preventing the stroke.
“You know I did everything I could,” she whispered.
“I know. And it wasn’t enough.”
The doorbell rang. Nina went to answer it, leaving Lena standing there, numb.
“Oh, Lena love, you’re here!” Auntie Val bustled in, clutching a pint of milk. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine,” Lena lied, brushing away tears.
“Ah, heard Nina was back,” Auntie Val said, eyeing the paperwork. “Sorting out the inheritance, then?”
“We are,” Nina said flatly, returning.
“Your mum always said you were her loyal one,” Auntie Val prattled on, oblivious to the tension. “Never left her side, did you? Not lik—”
“Val, we’re in the middle of family business,” Nina cut in, polite but firm.
“Right, of course! Just brought this milk—bought extra yesterday. Lena, take it, no sense wasting it.”
Once she’d gone, Nina pulled more papers from her bag.
“Here’s the tenancy agreement. You can keep the big bedroom and kitchen. Rent’s £800 a month.”
“*Eight hundred*?” Lena gasped. “My pension’s barely £900! How am I supposed to live?”
“Get a job. Or downsize.”
“Nina, what’s *happened* to you?” Lena sat opposite her. “We used to be so close. Yes, you left for the city after uni, started your own family—but we never fought!”
“We didn’t fight because I *kept quiet*,” Nina hissed. “When you leeched off our parents. When they bought you a flat but told me they ‘couldn’t afford’ to help. When you moved back here after splitting with Dave and lived off them *again*.”
“I worked!” Lena protested. “Teaching, at the library—”
“For pennies. And they still subsidised you.”
“And you were struggling, were you? Mark had a good job, the kids—”
“The kids needed *university funds*! I got *nothing* from Mum and Dad. Everything I have, I earned myself.”
For the first time, Lena saw it—not just coldness, but old, festering resentment.
“If you felt hard done by, you should’ve said something sooner,” Lena said quietly.
“To *who*? Mum, who doted on you? Dad, who thought you walked on water?”
“They loved us both—”
“They loved me when I was *convenient*. Good grades, university, marriage. The minute I lived for myself, I became ‘selfish’.” Nina clenched her fists. “Then you divorced Dave and came back. Suddenly it was all ‘Lena this, Lena that’—the devoted daughter, the perfect homemaker.”
“I *was* devoted,” Lena said. “It wasn’t an act.”
“I know. But that didn’t make it fair.”
Lena walked to the window. The old apple tree stood in the garden, its branches swaying. Beneath it, the weathered bench where they’d played as children.
“When did Mum change the will?” she asked.
“May. When you were hospitalised with pneumonia.”
Lena remembered. Two weeks in hospital—Mum alone. Or so she’d thought.
“You planned this.”
“No. I had holiday time. Came to help while you were ill.”
“And talked her into rewriting the will.”
“I didn’t *talk her into* anything,” Nina snapped. “I told her how hard it was—kids needing uni fees, no help from them. *She* offered.”
“She wasn’t well, Nina. Her memory was fading—”
“Fading enough to sign a legal document? Funny, that.”
Lena studied her sister’s rigid posture, the tension in her jaw.
“Doesn’t this eat at you?”
For a second, Nina hesitated. Then:
“Sometimes. But fairness matters more.”
“*Fairness*? You’ve got a home, a career, a family! What do I have? A pittance of a pension, no life of my own—and now you’re taking the house!”
“*Taking*? It’s *mine*.”
“Yours?” Lena let out a bitter laugh. “You lived here till you were eighteen. I’ve been here *forty years*. Who has more right to call it home?”
“The person named in the will.”
The kettle boiled. Nina poured tea, her tone softening slightly.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you. But Mum and Dad spent *everything* on you. I got scraps.”
“You *chose* to leave. Chose a different life.”
“And that means I forfeit inheritance?”
“No—just common decency. If you’d suggested splitting it, I’d have agreed.”
“What use is half a house in the countryside? Sell it? Rent to holidaymakers?”
Nina shook her head.
“It’s worth more whole.”
And then it hit her.
“You’re… selling it?” Lena whispered.
“Considering it.”
“Selling *our home*? Where we grew up?”
“Lena, it’s *bricks and mortar*.”
Lena stood so fast her tea slopped. “It’s *our childhood*! Where Mum and Dad *died*!”
“Sentiment won’t pay bills.”
“But scheming will?”
“I’m not scheming. I’m *realistic*.”
Lena righted the cup, hands shaking.
“Fine. Say you sell it. Where do I go?”
“Find a flat. Get a better job.”
“With *what money*?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Lena stared at her, this stranger wearing her sister’s face.
“What if I contest it?”
“Go ahead. The will’s airtight.”
“Mum wasn’t competent—”
“Prove it. Get a doctor to testify she was senile.”
Lena knew there was no such record. Officially, Mum had been sound of mind till the end.
“I need time to think,” she said stiffly.
“Don’t take too long. I’ve got a buyer.”
“*Already*?”
“The Thompsons next door want to extend their garden. Good offer.”
“You’ve *spoken to them*?”
“Preliminarily. They’Lena closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and reached for her phone—tomorrow, she’d call a solicitor, dig up every old medical record, and fight for the home that held every memory she had left.
