After In-Laws Seized My Dead Husband's Payout, They Went Mad with Regret

My husband was barely promoted to general manager before overwork killed him, dropping him dead at his desk.

I brought a lawyer and camped outside his company for three days and three nights.

Four rounds of talks, and in the end they gritted their teeth and agreed to pay three million dollars.

But the day the paperwork cleared, the money never landed in my account.

I took our newborn son and went to ask.

Their manager said the money had already gone to Joel Harding's parents, and had security throw me out.

When I got back to the old Harding house, my brother-in-law was directing workers to tear the place down and rebuild it.

I asked my father-in-law where the money was.

He gave me a cold sideways glance and tossed out an IOU.

"This is the one hundred fifty thousand Joel borrowed from us to buy his house. For the sake of being his father, I never once asked him to pay it back all these years."

"My son is dead, and his mother and I have inheritance rights too. Your half of that money just about covers this debt. The rest we'll call interest. I'm kind enough not to come after you for the difference, so from now on you and the Hardings are square."

I held my son in one arm and took the IOU with the other hand.

The handwriting was crooked and clumsy, clearly not the hand of an elite-university graduate like Joel.

The signature at the bottom, though, was seven or eight parts like his.

But two years ago, when we bought the house, Joel only ever said he wanted to get his own past wages back from his parents.

He never once mentioned borrowing money.

My son was wailing with hunger against my chest, and my eyes went red with anger.

"Dad, I just finished my recovery. Joel's dead, the only income this family had is gone, and you're taking every cent. What am I supposed to raise my child on? Clay Coleman is your grandson too!"

My mother-in-law glared at me, her voice sour.

"You say so and that makes it so? My son's gone, there's no one left to prove anything, so of course you can claim whatever you like!"

"But let me tell you, we still have Timothy Harding. His son is my grandson. As for that one in your arms..."

She paused, contempt dripping from every word.

"Who's to say where you'll take the kid once you remarry? We are not spending money to raise someone else's brat!"

Before I could even react, she snatched the IOU out of my hand.

"Enough. You've seen the IOU, everything's been made clear, so stop standing there like a fool and go home. Consider that apartment our gift to you. Sell it or keep it, the Hardings won't say a word either way."

Tears welled up in my dry eyes, and my voice shook.

"Mom, how can you say that? Joel's body isn't even cold, and you're throwing us out?"

"All these years since I married in, I've stayed home. There's never been a single other man near me besides Joel. What gives you the right to doubt me?"

My mother-in-law's eyes bulged as she dodged the point.

"What are you babbling about? I never threw you out! Don't go pinning things on me."

I laughed in anger.

"And that IOU just now, when was it written? Who wrote it?"

"Joel never told me the house money was borrowed. What he did tell me was that from the day he started working, you used the excuse of the debt from putting him through college and took eighty percent of his salary every single month to pay it off!"

"Six years. He gave you at least one million eight hundred thousand. Tuition was thirty thousand at the absolute most, and that's ignoring the fact that he was a top student who won a scholarship every year!"

My father-in-law charged at me right then, reaching out to shove me.

His eyes dropped to the baby in my arms. His hand froze in midair, then pulled back.

"Tamara, is that any way to speak to your elders?"

"How much my son gave us is Harding family business. An outsider like you has no place pointing fingers!"

"I haven't even brought up how my son died because of you. And you've got the nerve to come here shouting?"

I went rigid, staring at them in disbelief.

Three years ago, at the wedding, they had clasped my hands, thanks pouring out of their mouths. The words were still ringing in my ears.

They'd said the Harding family was blessed, marrying a daughter-in-law like me who asked for no bride price, no car.

Now they wore a completely different face.

Timothy, my brother-in-law, couldn't stand it. He started to charge forward, but Julia yanked him back.

She slapped her thigh and broke into loud sobbing.

"My poor boy, only thirty years old. Working himself to the bone to support this family, forced by you to work overtime every single day, and in the end he dropped dead at the office. He was still so young..."

"We're old people who've lost our son in our final years. God knows how we'll go on!"

"What a sin! Everybody, come see! The daughter-in-law's come to grab our money! My son's not even cold in his grave, and she wants to put us out on the street!"

The neighbors heard it and came out to watch the show.

A ring of people gathered fast, pointing and whispering at me.

The shouting frightened my son, and he wailed without stopping.

I stood there, the blood in my whole body gone cold.

Seeing the crowd had turned in her favor, Julia cried harder.

Timothy rushed forward, putting on a show of comforting her.

"Mom, don't be sad. From now on I'll take care of you and Dad. I'll do it even better than my brother ever did!"

Elijah gave a cold snort, lit a cigarette, and blew out a mouthful of smoke.

"You see that? Keep this up, and your mother-in-law will follow Joel to the grave. If you want people saying you drove your mother-in-law to her death, then by all means, keep it up."

"But let me be clear right now. No matter what you say today, there's no money. All you'll get from me is my life!"

Julia clung to him, still sobbing, and screamed at me.

"Why are you still wasting words on her? The Harding family has no such ungrateful daughter-in-law!"

"Get out. Get out right now! Don't ever show your face to me again! Whether we live or die is none of your business!"

Grievance and fury surged up into my chest all at once, and I moved as if to rush at them.

A neighbor grabbed me and held me back.

"What are you doing? You think you're going to lay hands on them?"

"That's enough, don't say another word. You're holding a baby. It's no good for the child to hear all this."

"Right, just leave already. Making a scene will only hurt you!"

I knotted my brows, staring hard at Elijah and Julia.

"Fine. I'll remember these words. And I hope you won't live to regret them!"

"You cheap slut, you dare threaten us? How did Joel go blind and marry a fox spirit like you? I'll beat you to death!"

"All right, all right, everyone hold your tongues!"

A crowd of them shoved me out onto the main road.

It was the hottest stretch of summer, blazing sun overhead, and yet my whole body felt like it had dropped into an ice cellar.

My son was still crying.

I had no time to go back and argue it out. I could only get a rideshare home.

I waited half an hour at the edge of the fields before the car I'd called finally arrived.

On the way, I took out the formula I'd mixed early that morning and fed my son.

I soothed him the whole drive, and by the time the car pulled into the city, his crying finally stopped.

At the complex, when it came time to pay, I opened my phone.

The wallpaper was still the photo of Joel and me from before I gave birth.

He was down on one knee, both hands cradling my heavy belly.

His cheek pressed against the swell of my stomach.

His eyes full of the joy of becoming a father.

I still remembered him saying he'd take annual leave the next month, that he'd take me and our son to Hawaii.

But in the span of a few short days, everything had been turned upside down.

I dragged my exhausted body home and coaxed my son to sleep.

A text about a credit card balance popped up.

This month's bill: eighty-eight thousand dollars. Payment due on the twentieth of next month.

This was the money for Joel's funeral.

His parents wouldn't put up a cent, and I was a stay-at-home mother with no income of my own.

The only way I got through it was by draining what savings the household still had and maxing out my credit card.

Every bit of condolence money the relatives gave went straight into the pockets of Joel's parents.

I was the one who'd paid and done the work, and I ended up with nothing.

I shut my eyes in despair.

My son was still so small. This family still needed me to hold it up.

I couldn't fall apart. I didn't have the right to.

After an hour's rest I dragged myself up off the couch and opened the laptop.

I was about to move my resume over from my phone when I stumbled onto something Timothy had just posted on his social media.

The photo was taken in front of the old Harding house.

The run-down place had already been leveled, cleared and waiting to be rebuilt.

Parked in front of the rubble was a brand-new black car.

Timothy stood half-turned, flashing a peace sign, angled just enough to show off the Mercedes emblem on the grille.

I saved the picture and ran a reverse image search on my phone.

A second later the results loaded.

Even the base model of that car ran a million.

The Harding relatives were all liking it.

The comments were nothing but praise.

The anger I'd barely managed to swallow came surging back up.

I went back to the app, ready to demand where Timothy had gotten the money for a car like that.

My eyes drifted down, and I saw the muted family group chat sitting at 99+ messages.

I tapped in. Wall to wall envy, one message after another.

"Timothy bought a car? And he's rebuilding a house for your folks too? Now that's making something of yourself. When you get the chance, bring your cousins in on it."

"Timothy, man, that car is seriously flashy! Can't have been cheap, right? I heard the high-end one goes for one point three million. Where'd you get that kind of money? Win the lottery?"

"Neither Harding boy is a dud, I'll say that. Same last name and all, if my worthless kid had even half of what you two brothers have going for him, I could die laughing."

Timothy posted a sixty-second voice message in the chat.

I tapped it. He was laughing.

"It's pocket change, really. You've got to give a little to get a little. Just did some small business lately, got lucky and made a bit. When the chance comes we'll all get rich together!"

He ignored every single question about how he'd actually earned it and just kept saying he'd gotten lucky.

I scrolled through the messages one by one, and my heart sank lower with each of them.

I knew exactly what kind of person Timothy was.

In the three years I'd been married into the Hardings, he'd borrowed money at least five times, all of it going to game top-ups and tips for livestreamers.

A grown man at his age, and he couldn't even land himself a girlfriend.

No wonder Joel's parents refused, no matter what, to give me any share of the payout.

No wonder they'd rather forge an IOU and disown their own grandson than let go of that three million.

I'd actually thought it was just two old people worrying about their retirement, wanting a cushion for themselves.

It turned out they simply favored their younger son.

Seen that way, the wages my in-laws used to squeeze out of Joel under the excuse of paying off debts had mostly gone into Timothy's pocket too.

I was burning with anger, aching at how little all of my dead husband's devotion had been worth.

After a moment's thought, I typed out a line, fast.

"Getting rich all on your own isn't very decent. Everyone's been asking this whole time and you still can't say how. It wouldn't happen to be blood-and-sweat money someone paid for with their life, would it?"

Two seconds after I hit send, a line popped up on the screen.

"You have been removed from this group chat."

Too angry to let it go, I opened his chat and called Timothy.

The call failed, a red exclamation mark appearing on the screen.

I actually laughed out loud.

If you want to know what a guilty conscience looks like, that was it.

But I didn't have time to tangle with that pack of trash.

The urgent thing was to find a job, to feed myself and my son.

I turned off my phone and blasted out my rsum everywhere.

A year-long gap for pregnancy made the job hunt brutal.

But thank God, an elite-university degree still looked impressive on paper.

That, plus low salary expectations, and three companies sent me interview invitations almost right away.

I called my mother over that same night to help watch my son.

And I spent the whole next day getting through every interview.

Three interviews. Three offers.

In the end I picked the one closest to home, with the best growth prospects, and signed on.

Three days into the job, during lunch break, my phone suddenly rang.

An unknown number.

I answered with a frown.

"Who is this?"

An urgent voice came through.

"Hello? Is this the Harding daughter-in-law? Something's wrong, you'd better get over here! Your parents just got into a fight with someone, both of them got shoved down, your father's out cold, and your mother's in so much pain she can't even talk!"

My frown pulled tighter.

I glanced down.

At this hour my mother should be home watching the baby.

I turned my voice cold.

"What family? Who got knocked down? Say it clearly."

An "oh, come on" came through the receiver.

"Are you slow or something? I mean Joel's parents!"

"Timothy's been gone the last couple of days, said he went off to make money, and the family owed a foreman advance wages they couldn't cover, so the two sides got into it."

"The foreman's young, lost his temper and got physical. Look, just get over here, or it'll be too late!"

I rolled my eyes.

"That's got nothing to do with me. The Hardings don't claim me as their daughter-in-law, so go find their son. Stop bothering me."

And I hung up.

The second I closed my eyes to rest, that number called again.

I hung up. She called again.

After the second time, I dropped the number straight into the blocklist.

Finally, quiet.

I hadn't slept ten minutes when my phone started buzzing like mad again.

A different number this time.

I hesitated, then answered.

This time it was my mother-in-law, sniveling and crying.

"Tamara, it's Mom. Your dad collapsed, and I'm hurting so bad I can't stand. I'm begging you, come home, drive us to the hospital, please?"

I nearly laughed in her face.

"Do I even know you? If I remember right, I don't have anything to do with you people."

She was frantic.

"Tamara, what kind of thing is that to say? You're the Harding daughter-in-law, of course you're one of us!"

"That's not what you said when you were grabbing Joel's payout."

"You told me the Hardings and I were square from then on, that they didn't claim me as a daughter-in-law. Your memory's bad because you're getting old, but mine isn't."

"The money's in Timothy's hands. Since he's the one taking care of you two in his brother's place, go find him. Stop bothering me."

I reached to end the call.

She burst into full sobs.

"That was just Mom panicking and running her mouth, wasn't it? Fine, Mom was wrong, I'm begging you, come back and help."

"There's no way to reach Timothy, none at all, Mom's really out of options, you're all I've got. If you won't step in, your dad won't make it through the night!"

My face went completely cold.

"I'll ask you one last time. That three million, did it all go to Timothy?"

The line went silent for three seconds. Then, in a low voice, she said,

"Yes. But he's the one who asked for it. Your dad and I didn't want to at first, but he's the only son we have left. If we didn't give it to him, who'd take care of us in our old age?"

"Tamara, Mom really knows she was wrong. He took every bit of savings your dad and I had, said he wanted to do some kind of investment, and then he left and we can't reach him..."

I drew a slow breath.

"Good. I've got my answer. I have work to do. Goodbye."

Her voice shot up.

"What's that supposed to mean? You're just abandoning us?"

"How exactly do you want me to help? I'm just a housewife. I'm still more than eighty thousand in debt from the funeral, you gave the whole payout to your son, and if I showed up I couldn't cover a single hospital bill."

"It's not that I won't help. There's nothing I can do."

On the other end she wailed, choking on regret.

I hung up and blocked the number too.

No mood left to rest, I opened Timothy's social media feed, hoping for some clue.

It was just a single blank line. Then I remembered he'd blocked me.

I logged into my husband's account, and there it was, Timothy's feed.

Over a dozen posts in two days.

Every photo was of one hot, sultry woman.

It started with flowers and milk tea, then jewelry, then handbags.

In two short days he'd blown close to a million.

He'd even transferred the brand-new car he'd just bought into her name.

His latest post said he was off to Southeast Asia to travel with his "baby."

Not a single Harding relative in the comments.

Looked like he'd posted it to a filtered group.

With Joel dead, he'd gotten careless about this account.

I stared at that line for a long time, and in the end I just laughed.

The two old Hardings were reaping what they'd sown.

But I'm no saint. I had no interest in passing the news along.

I turned off my phone. It was already time to be back at work.

Just as I was settling in, the city hospital's landline number came through.

"Hello? Is this Ms. Tamara Pruitt? Your father-in-law is in emergency care here. Your mother-in-law asked that you come pay right away. The patient's condition is critical and he needs surgery immediately."

"You've got the wrong person. I don't know these people. Harass me again and I'll call the police."

I hung up, put my phone on silent, and buried myself in work.

An hour later, a group of officers appeared in the office area.

The one in front walked in and flashed a badge.

"Which of you is Tamara Pruitt? Someone filed a report alleging illegal seizure of an inheritance and refusal to support elderly parents. We'll need you to come with us."