When I told my mother that I had bought a house, after saving for ten years to achieve it, she grabbed my hair and held a lighter to me.

The following afternoon, it was my mother’s turn to be surprised when she received a call from the bank’s fraud department and a visit from the local sheriff. Her carefully constructed world of control was starting to crumble under the weight of her own arrogance and the paper trail I had meticulously gathered.

Two weeks later, I had to travel back to Virginia for a mediation session that was held in a cold, sterile conference room at the county courthouse. My mother sat across from me with a face that she usually reserved for church, appearing like a grieving and honorable victim to anyone who didn’t know her.

“This entire situation is just a result of Audrey’s long-standing resentment and her desperate need to feel superior to her sister,” Eleanor began with a theatrical sigh. Madeline did not waste any time with pleasantries and immediately placed a thick envelope of bank records and digital logs on the table.