“Blood Is Thicker Than Water”
“Nina, what on earth are you doing?!” 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 without looking up from the paperwork spread across the kitchen table. “Should I have just sat back while you ran Mum and Dad’s house into the ground?”
“Ran it into the ground?” Lena gripped the back of a chair. “I kept this house together for thirty years—after Mum and Dad passed! Where were you all that time?”
“Oh, where was I, where was I,” Nina mocked, finally lifting her cold eyes. “Working, actually. Earning a living. Not leeching off our parents till I was forty.”
The floor seemed to drop beneath Lena. She sank into a chair, staring at the documents.
“Is that… the will?” she whispered.
“Indeed,” Nina said curtly. “Mum left the house to me. Entirely. You’ll need to find somewhere else to live.”
“But how…? When did she even do this? Mum was ill—she could barely think straight those last few months!”
“That’s exactly why I came. Someone had to handle her affairs while you were busy playing nurse with pills and hospitals.”
Lena stared, barely recognising her sister. Nina had always been tough, practical—but no one expected cruelty like this. Especially not now, barely a month after their mother’s funeral.
“Look, let’s talk this through 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 fair rate, of course.”
“Rent a room? In our parents’ house?” Lena let out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re joking.”
“Dead serious. Property is property.”
Lena stood, pacing the kitchen. Every corner held memories. Mum’s favourite ficus by the window, watered without fail for fifteen years. Jars of homemade jam on the shelf, put up together every autumn.
“Remember what Mum always said?” Lena asked quietly. “That this house should stay in the family—for our grandchildren?”
“You don’t have grandchildren,” Nina shot back. “But I’ve got Max and Alice. It’ll go to them.”
Lena turned sharply. “Your kids didn’t even come to the funeral! I was the one who looked after Mum—every single day!”
“Oh yes, ‘looked after’,” Nina waved a hand dismissively. “And where did that get her? Dead in a hospital bed.”
The words hit like a knife. Lena *had* blamed herself—for missing the signs, for not preventing the stroke.
“You know I did everything I could,” she whispered.
“Wasn’t enough, was it?”
The doorbell rang. Nina went to answer, leaving Lena standing hollow-eyed in the kitchen.
“Oh, Lena love—you’re here!” Mrs. Wilkins from next door bustled in, clutching a carton of milk. “How are you holding up, dear?”
“Fine,” Lena lied, wiping her eyes.
“Heard Nina was back,” Mrs. Wilkins said, eyeing the papers. “Sorting out the inheritance, then?”
“We are,” Nina said flatly, returning.
“Your mum always said you were her devoted one,” Mrs. Wilkins prattled on, oblivious. “Never left her side, did you? Not like some…”
Nina’s lips thinned.
“Margaret, we’re in the middle of family business,” she said tightly.
“Oh! Of course, dear. Just brought spare milk—no sense wasting it.”
Once she’d gone, Nina pulled more papers from her bag.
“Tenancy agreement,” she said briskly. “You can keep the big bedroom and kitchen. Rent’s £800 a month.”
“*Eight hundred*?” Lena gasped. “My pension’s barely £1,000! How am I supposed to—?”
“Get a job. Or downsize.”
Lena sat heavily. “Nina, what’s happened to you? We used to be so close. Yes, you left after uni, built your life—but we never fought!”
“No, because I *kept quiet*,” Nina hissed. “When you drained Mum and Dad dry. When they bought you that flat in London but told me they ‘couldn’t afford’ to help. When you moved back here after the divorce and mooched off them *again*.”
“I worked!” Lena snapped. “Taught at the primary school, did shifts at the library!”
“For peanuts. And they still funded you.”
“And what—you were starving? Mark had a good job, the kids—”
“The kids needed *university*! I had to manage everything myself—no help, ever!”
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!”
“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*,” Nina spat. “Good grades, good uni, good marriage. The second I lived for *myself*, I was an afterthought.” Her fists clenched. “Then you divorced Tom and came crawling back. Suddenly it was all ‘Lena this, Lena that’—perfect daughter, perfect carer.”
“I *did* care for them,” Lena said softly. “It wasn’t an act.”
“I know. But that doesn’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 in hospital with pneumonia.”
Lena remembered. Two weeks she’d spent ill—while Nina swooped in.
“You planned it.”
“I had *leave*. Thought I’d help Mum while you were out of action.”
“And talked her into rewriting the will.”
“I didn’t *talk her into* anything,” Nina snapped. “Just told her how hard it was—kids needing uni fees, no support. *She* offered.”
“She was *ill*, Nina. Her memory was—”
“Ill enough to sign legally, wasn’t she?”
Lena studied her sister—spine stiff, hands knotted, eyes burning.
“And the solicitor didn’t question it? Leaving everything to the daughter who *wasn’t* caring for her?”
“Solicitors follow instructions. They don’t meddle in family drama.”
Lena exhaled. “Sleep on it. But don’t take too long. Already got a buyer lined up.”
“A *buyer*?”
“The Clarksons want to extend their garden. Decent offer.”
Lena walked out, wordless. Upstairs, she pulled out the photo album. There they were—building sandcastles, holding hands on their first day of school, beaming at Nina’s graduation.
When had it soured? Or had Nina always been this person, biding her time?
Dusk fell. Downstairs, Nina packed her suitcase.
“Going?”
“Early train tomorrow. Work’s piling up.”
“And you’ll be back…?”
“Month or so. Finalise the paperwork.”
They stood in silence. Nina offered a hand.
“Don’t hate me, Lena. Everyone’s got to look out for themselves.”
Lena took it. “And family? What about that?”
“Family’s a two-way street. Not just *take*.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Lena murmured. “Maybe I took too much.”
Nina smiled faintly. “Now we’re even.”
—
After Nina left, the house felt cavernous. Every familiar thing now hers no longer.
Next morning, Mrs. Wilkins returned.
“Love, I overheard…” She wrung her hands. “Is she really selling?”
Lena nodded.
“But—your parents would *haunt* her! They adored this place!”
“She says it’s hers to sell.”
“Legally, maybe. But where’s her *heart*?”
Over tea, Mrs. Wilkins leaned in. “What if you fought it? That May visit—I saw Nina leading your mum about like a puppet. Even to the *solicitor’s*.”
Lena’s pulse jumped.
At the solicitor’s office, the woman frowned. “I remember her. Elderly, with her daughter. Needed… guidance.”
“Guidance, or coercion?”
The solicitor hesitated. “No legal grounds to refuse the will. But… it *was* unusual.”
At the legal aid office, the lawyer was blunt. “Tough case. Proving undue influence? Costly.”
The sum made Lena’s stomach lurch—but so did the thought of losing the house.
That night, she opened the album again. Mum beamed between them, arms around both daughters. Four years ago—already, the cracks were there.
Lena closed the book. Tomorrow, she’d file theShe took a deep breath, staring at the apple tree through the window, and knew—no matter the cost—she’d fight for the home that held every memory worth keeping.
