My stepmom RUINED the skirt I made from my late dad’s ties to honor him during my prom. ______ When my dad died, I was left with my stepmother, Carla — who didn’t shed a single tear. At the funeral, while I could barely stand, she leaned over and hissed, “You’re embarrassing yourself. Stop crying — he’s gone.” Two weeks later, she cleaned out dad’s closet, tossing his favorite collection of ties into a trash bag. “They’re not junk. They’re his,” I begged. She rolled her eyes. “HE’S NOT COMING BACK FOR THEM. GROW UP.” I saved them when she wasn’t looking. Each still smelled faintly like my dad’s cologne. Prom was coming up. I didn’t want to go, but I knew Dad would’ve wanted me to. So I decided to honor him and stitched those ties into a skirt. Each pattern held a memory — his job interview, my recital, Christmas mornings. When I tried it on, I whispered, “He’d love this.” The night before prom, I hung it on my closet door. The next morning, I smelled Carla’s perfume in my room. The skirt was on the floor — RIPPED APART, ties scattered like bones. I screamed. Carla appeared, sipping coffee. “That thing was HIDEOUS anyway. DO NOT PRETEND TO BE A PATHETIC ORPHAN!” “You destroyed the last thing I had of Dad’s!” She smirked. “He’s DEAD, not magic. Get over it.” But karma was faster then I thought, as police lights flashed outside. A knock. Carla froze. The officer came in and looked at me. “You live here?” “Yes… why?” He turned to Carla. “We’re here for Mrs. Miller.

I felt dizzy.

“There’s more,” he added. “There’s a child everyone thinks belongs to someone else.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“This wedding didn’t start after Mom died,” he said quietly.

He pressed the envelope into my shaking hands.

“She knew she was being betrayed while she was dying.”

We stepped into a small side room. Robert closed the door and broke the seal.

It started like a goodbye.

She wrote that she didn’t want her final months filled with fighting. That she found out by accident. Messages. Money that moved quietly. Dates that didn’t add up.

She wrote that she confronted him calmly. That he told her she was imagining things. That her illness was making her paranoid.

She believed him. Because when you love someone for decades, you learn to doubt yourself first.

Then she wrote the truth.

It was her sister.

And the child everyone believed belonged to another man was his.

I felt something in me collapse.

She wrote that it wasn’t love that kept him by her side. It was safety. What he would lose if he left.

She rewrote her will. Quietly. Legally.

Everything went to us.

The door opened. Dad’s voice called out, asking if we were okay.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll be right out.”

We walked back into the reception together. Dad smiled when he saw us.

“We need to talk,” I said.

His smile faded.

I held up the envelope. “Mom knew. About everything.”

Laura whispered his name.

“She rewrote the will,” Robert added. “You get nothing.”

Dad’s face drained. Laura stepped away from him.

We left without saying goodbye.

Months later, Laura left him too. Love fades fast when there’s nothing left to inherit.

Mom didn’t fight while she was dying.

She won quietly.