“The doctor gave me six months,” I announced to my family. They rushed over immediately, eager to divide the house, unaware it was just the first move in my little game.
I watched my children gathered around the dining table in my sitting room and saw three complete strangers staring back at me.
My eldest, a forty-year-old named Nigel, sat with the tense expression of a man already skinning a bear that hadnt even been shot yet.
My thirty-five-year-old daughter, Felicity, was casting greedy, appraising glances at the paintings on the walls and the antique dresser.
Only the youngest, thirty-year-old Beatrice, was looking not at my possessions, but straight into my eyes.
I took a sip of water to wet my dry throat.
“The doctors say youve got six months?” Nigel leaned forward, his manicured fingers crumpling the linen napkin in his hands.
“Mum, we need to be realistic. No time for sentiment. Your estateall your assetsneed to be properly transferred. We need a clear, watertight plan.”
Felicity chimed in, her voice sweet and insistent, like a market trader flogging overpriced rugs. “And the house Nigel and I were thinking we should get a valuation done. Just for transparency, you understand? So theres no arguing later.”
They didnt even bother hiding their indifference. Straight to the numbers, straight to the square footage.
Only Beatrice stayed silent. She stood, walked behind me, and laid warm, trembling hands on my shoulders.
The next day, Felicity turned up with a real estate agent. “Just to get a sense of the market, Mum. No pressure.”
The slick young man strode around with a laser measure while Felicity whispered about the “awkward bathroom layout” and how “prices in this postcode have plummeted.”
Nigel phoned three times before noon. Not to ask how I was. He demanded access to financial reports and the contact details of my corporate solicitors.
“A business is a living organism, Mum. It cant just sit idle. Every day wasted is money lost.”
I gave him everything he asked for. Or at least, I made it look that way. Calmly. Methodically.
They scurried about, dividing, scheming, so absorbed in my inheritance theyd forgotten one crucial detail: I wasnt dead yet.
One evening, the doorbell rang. There stood Beatrice with two containers of homemade food. She didnt ask about wills or appraisals.
“I brought you some chicken soup and a shepherds pie. You need to eat properly.”
She sat beside me on the sofa and took my hand.
“Mum, if you need anythingto talk or just for me to sit with youjust say the word.”
I looked at her tired face, fresh from a night shift, and heard the simple, precious words.
A week later, Nigel and Felicity arrived together. With a solicitor.
“Mum, weve drafted a will for you,” Nigel announced. “To make things easier. Weve divided everything fairly.”
Felicity handed me a thick folder.
“Your final wishes should be ironclad. No messy legal disputes later.”
I flipped through the documents. Every last silver spoon accounted for. My house, my shares, my savingsall neatly split between them.
Beatrices name appeared only in passing: a neglected cottage on the outskirts and an old hatchback.
I looked up. They watched me expectantly, barely masking their impatience. They wanted my signature. My final act.
But this wasnt the end. It was barely the beginning.
“Thank you for being so thoughtful,” I said evenly. “Ill review it carefully. Give me a few days.”
When the door closed behind them, I went to the safe. Inside was another folderprepared by my solicitor a month ago, right after my doctors visit.
I called Beatrice.
“Darling, can you come over? I need your help.”
She arrived within an hour. No questions, no fuss. She sat across from me in the armchair Felicity had already mentally earmarked for the skip.
“Everything alright? You look different.”
I handed her a slim folder containing a power of attorney. Full control. In her name.
“I need you to do a few things. It wont be easy. But youre the only one I trust.”
She took the document, her fingers tracing the lines.
“Of course. What do you need?”
“Marathon, not a sprint,” I began. “First, meet with my solicitor. Hell guide you. Well move assets slowlyno sudden moves to raise suspicions.”
Nigel got sent to audit a bankrupt factory in Yorkshire, blissfully unaware it was a dead end.
Felicity spent weeks cataloging every vase and painting, convinced she was inventorying her future estate.
Meanwhile, Beatrice, after her hospital shifts, quietly signed papers, opened accounts, redirected funds.
Two months passed. I weakened visiblyit wasnt hard to act exhausted.
Nigel was the first to suspect. The factory audit went nowhere, and our financial advisor tipped him off.
He stormed in, red-faced.
“Mum, what the hell? Why are you liquidating the portfolio?”
I sighed. “Medical bills, darling. Swiss clinics dont come cheap.”
He didnt buy it. “There were millions! You couldnt have spent it all!”
Felicity arrived next, livid. An art dealer had spotted “your family collection” in a pre-sale catalogue.
They loomed over me, screaming about money, assets, inheritanceanything but me.
Then Beatrice walked in.
“Youre shouting. She doesnt need this.”
Nigel rounded on her. “Stay out of this! Its none of your business!”
Time to drop the act.
I stood, voice steady. “Actually, it is. Unlike you.”
They froze.
“What?” Nigel hissed.
“Im not dying,” I said. “Severe stress and cardiomopathy. The doctor said I had six months unless I changed my life. So I did.”
Their shock curdled into rage.
“You lied?” Felicity shrieked. “This whole charadewhy?”
“To see what I already knew.”
I opened the door. “Now get out.”
They left, spitting threats of lawsuits.
Kicking and screaming, they learned the hard wayevery transaction had been airtight.
Five years later, I sit on the terrace, watching Beatrice run a charity funding rural clinics. She never quit nursingjust scaled up her kindness.
Nigel gambled on a doomed venture, bankrupted himself. Works in sales nownever calls.
Felicitys status-hunting husband left when the money dried up. She blames me.
“You didnt break your life,” I told her. “Your reflection did.”
Beatrice, though? She kept the charity, the cottage, the hatchback. And every time she visits, she brings soup.
Just soup.
But we both know it was never just soup. It was a choice.
And she made the right one.
