“You can’t do this!” she hissed, voice sharp enough to cut glass.
I looked directly at her — wearing my dress, standing next to my husband — and smiled for the first time that day.
“My father already did.”
I turned back to the stunned crowd and continued reading the final paragraph:
“To my daughter Natalie — the only person who never treated my money like it was love — I leave everything. Use it wisely. And never let small people make you feel small again.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Grant’s legs gave out. He dropped back into the pew like someone had cut his strings. Rebecca stood there in my stolen dress, mouth open, eyes wild with panic.
I folded the paper slowly and looked out at the hundreds of faces staring back at me.
“My father knew,” I said, voice ringing through the cathedral. “He knew what both of you were doing while he was dying. And he made sure I would never have to share my future with people who never truly loved me.”
I stepped down from the pulpit and walked straight past Grant and Rebecca.
As I passed my husband, I paused just long enough to say:
“You can keep the dress, Becca. It looks better on a whore anyway.”
Then I walked out of the cathedral with my head high, leaving my father’s funeral, my cheating husband, and his mistress behind in the ruins of their own making.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t grieving.
