**A Family Betrayal**
*Diary Entry*
“Emily, what on earth have you done?” Charlotte’s voice trembled with anger. “How could you treat me like this? I’m your own sister!”
“And what did you expect?” Emily snapped, not looking up from the paperwork spread across the kitchen table. “For me to sit back while you let our home fall apart?”
“Fall apart?” Charlotte gripped the back of a chair. “I’ve kept this house standing for thirty years—since Mum and Dad passed! Where were you all that time?”
“Oh, here we go,” Emily mocked, finally raising her cold eyes. “Working, actually. Earning a living. Not leeching off our parents until I was forty.”
The floor seemed to shift beneath Charlotte. She sank onto a chair, staring at the documents.
“Is this really the will?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Emily said flatly. “Mum left the house to me. Entirely. You’ll need to find somewhere else to live.”
“But how…? When did she do this? In those last months, she was so ill—her mind wasn’t right.”
“That’s exactly why I came back. Someone had to handle her affairs while you were fussing with pills and hospital visits.”
Charlotte barely recognised the woman before her. Emily had always been practical, even harsh—but never this cruel. It had been barely a month since their mother’s funeral.
“Em, let’s talk properly,” Charlotte tried softly. “I get that you deserve a share. But to throw me out…?”
“I’m not throwing you out.” Emily smoothed the papers into a neat pile. “You can rent a room. At a fair rate, of course.”
“Rent a room in my own home?” Charlotte’s voice cracked. “You’re serious?”
“Perfectly serious. Property is property.”
Charlotte stood, pacing the kitchen. Every corner held memories—her mother’s ivy by the window, watered without fail for fifteen years; the jars of homemade jam lining the shelves, put up together every autumn.
“Do you remember what Mum always said?” Charlotte asked quietly. “This house was to stay in the family—for our grandchildren.”
“You don’t have any,” Emily said sharply. “But I have Oliver and Sophie. It’ll go to them.”
Charlotte turned. “Your children couldn’t even be bothered to come to the funeral! I was the one caring for Mum every day!”
“Oh, yes, your saintly devotion,” Emily scoffed. “And where did that get her? Dead in a hospital bed.”
The words pierced Charlotte. She’d blamed herself for missing the signs of the stroke, for failing her mother.
“You know I did everything I could,” she whispered.
“And it wasn’t enough.”
The doorbell rang. Emily went to answer it while Charlotte stood frozen, lost in the surreal horror of it all.
“Oh, Charlotte, you’re home!” Mrs. Wilkins from next door bustled in, holding a pint of milk. “How are you holding up, love?”
“Fine,” Charlotte lied, swiping at her tears.
“I heard Emily was back.” Mrs. Wilkins eyed the papers on the table. “Sorting out the will, are you?”
“We are,” Emily said curtly, returning.
“Your mum always said you were her devoted one,” Mrs. Wilkins prattled on, oblivious to the tension. “Never left her side, did you? Not like some.”
Emily’s lips thinned.
“Margaret, we’re in the middle of a family discussion,” she said tightly.
“Oh, of course!” Flustered, Mrs. Wilkins set the milk down. “Just thought you could use this—bought extra by mistake.”
Once she’d gone, the sisters were alone again. Emily pulled more papers from her bag.
“Here’s the tenancy agreement. You can keep the larger room. Rent is £800 a month.”
“Eight hundred?” Charlotte gasped. “My pension is barely £900! How am I supposed to live?”
“Get a job. Or downsize.”
“Emily, what’s happened to you?” Charlotte sat opposite her. “We’ve always been close. You left for uni, built your life—but we never fought.”
“We didn’t fight because I stayed silent,” Emily said, her gaze brittle. “Silent when you drained Mum and Dad dry. Silent when they bought you that flat in London and told me there was nothing left for me. Silent when you moved back after the divorce and lived off them again.”
“I worked!” Charlotte shot back. “Teaching, the library—”
“For pennies. And they still supported you.”
“And you were struggling? James earned well, the kids—”
“The kids needed university fees! I got no help. Everything fell on me.”
For the first time, Charlotte saw it—not just coldness in Emily’s eyes, but old, festering resentment.
“If you felt that way, you should’ve said something. We could’ve fixed it.”
“To whom? Mum, who worshipped you? Dad, who thought you were the perfect daughter?”
“They loved us both!”
“They loved me when I was convenient. Good grades, good degree, good marriage. The minute I lived for myself, I became a stranger.”
Emily clenched her hands. “Then you divorced and came back. Suddenly, it was all ‘Charlotte this, Charlotte that.’ So devoted, so capable.”
“I *did* care for them,” Charlotte said softly. “It wasn’t an act.”
“I know. But that didn’t make it easier.”
Charlotte walked to the window. Outside stood the old apple tree their grandfather had planted, the bench beneath it where they’d played as children.
“When did Mum change the will?” she asked, not turning.
“Last May. When you were in hospital with pneumonia.”
Charlotte remembered. Two weeks she’d been bedridden. And all that time, Emily had been here—working on Mum.
“You planned this.”
“I took leave to help her while you were ill.”
“And convinced her to rewrite the will.”
“I didn’t convince her,” Emily snapped. “I told her the truth—how hard it’s been without support, the kids’ tuition fees. *She* offered.”
“Mum wasn’t in her right mind, Em!”
“Her mind was fine enough to sign legal documents.”
Charlotte turned, studying her sister. Emily sat rigid, hands folded—calm, but for the tension in her jaw.
“And the solicitor didn’t question it? Leaving everything to the daughter who lived miles away, not the one who cared for her?”
“Solicitors follow instructions. They don’t meddle in family drama.”
“Doesn’t your conscience bother you?”
Emily hesitated, then stood to fill the kettle.
“It does,” she admitted quietly. “But fairness matters more.”
“Fairness? You’ve got your home, your career, your family! I’ve got nothing—a pittance of a pension, no one to rely on. And now you’re taking my home?”
“I’m taking what’s mine.”
Charlotte laughed bitterly. “You lived here eighteen years. I’ve been here over forty. Which of us has more right?”
“The one named in the will.”
The kettle boiled. Emily poured tea, her tone softer.
“Sit. Let’s talk properly.”
Reluctantly, Charlotte obeyed.
“Look,” Emily continued, “I don’t want to hurt you. But Mum and Dad poured everything into you. I got scraps.”
“You chose to leave. Chose your own path.”
“And that means I forfeit my inheritance?”
“Not the inheritance—basic decency! If you’d asked to split it, I’d have agreed.”
“What would I do with half a country house? Sell it? Rent it to holidaymakers?”
Emily shook her head.
“It’s worth more as a whole. Easier to sell.”
The truth hit Charlotte like a blow.
“You’re selling it?”
“It’s an option.”
“Sell our family home? Where we grew up?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. It’s just bricks and mortar.”
“Just—?” Charlotte stood so fast her cup tipped over. “This place *is* my life! Our childhood, Mum and Dad’s last years—every inch of it means something!”
“Sentimentality won’t pay the bills.”
“But betrayal will?”
Emily sighed as Charlotte mopped up the tea.
“Fine. Say you sell it. Where do I go?”
“You’ll manage. Rent a room, find a job.”
“With what money? I can’t even afford to move!”
“Get better work. Or remarry.”
“I’m fifty-seven, Emily!”
“And? Plenty start over at that age.”
Charlotte stared, struggling to reconcile this stranger with the sister who’d shared her secrets, her childhood.
“What if I contest it in court?”
“Go ahead. The will’s airtight. You’ll lose.”
“Mum wasn’t competent—”
“Prove it. Get a doctor to testify she was mentally unfit. Oh, wait—you can’t.”
Charlotte knew it was true. Officially, Mum had been sound of mind till the end.
“You know what?” she said, standing.She picked up the solicitor’s card, dialed the number with trembling fingers, and began the fight to reclaim not just the house, but the love and loyalty her sister had so carelessly discarded.
