While I Was Reading My Dad’s Eulogy, My Stepmother Sold His Favorite Car – She Turned Pale After Discovering What Was Hidden Under the Spare Tire
“You can’t be serious!”
“Family changes. Get in, Hazel. I’ll give you a ride,” Karen shot back. “You know, your father would have understood.”
I stood firm, feeling the world tilt.
“Not without answers, Karen. Not today.”
I wanted to hate her. I needed her to be simple — greed with a face I could point at. But the way her hands shook around that envelope told me this wasn’t just theft. This was panic. And panic makes people do irreversible things.
Maybe grief makes monsters. But she chose the lie. She chose today.
“Your father would have understood.”
I stared after the flatbed as it turned the corner, the Shelby’s silhouette shrinking in the distance. I pressed my palms to my knees, fighting the urge to scream.
All week I’d thought: get through the funeral, then it would settle.
Instead, everything I had left of my dad was disappearing down the road.
Aunt Lucy hovered, clutching her purse. “Hazel, come sit down. You’re shaking.”
I slumped onto the curb, elbows on my thighs, head bowed. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Karen pacing at the lot’s edge, sunglasses off now, jaw tight.
I stared after the flatbed as it turned the corner.
For a second, I thought she’d just leave, but instead she drifted toward the cemetery gate, staring at the row of fresh flowers by Dad’s new grave.
I fidgeted with my house keys. My phone buzzed — a friend asking if I needed a ride home, someone else sending a photo from the service.
I ignored them all.
My chest burned with regret. Maybe if I’d just argued with Karen harder or brought the title with me or…
A tear slipped down my cheek. I swiped it away, glancing over as Karen crouched by Dad’s headstone. I saw her lips moving. Maybe she was praying, maybe apologizing… maybe both.
I ignored them all.
Could I offer the buyer more money? Go to the police?
I felt so helpless.
Karen stood slowly, brushing dirt from her skirt. She didn’t look at me as she walked back — her eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy.
For a moment, I saw the woman Dad had tried so hard to love, not just the woman who’d sold his car.
Before I could stand, a silver sedan rolled into the lot, tires crunching over gravel. The driver — young, oil under his nails — jumped out with a sealed plastic bag, looking rattled.
I felt so helpless.
“Are you Hazel?” he asked, glancing between Karen and me. “Buyer wanted a quick inspection of the Shelby before he signed the final paperwork. We were told to meet him here. We found this. The boss said you needed to see it first.”
Karen moved fast, grabbing for the bag. “It’s probably just more of Thomas’s junk.”
But as she ripped it open and saw what was inside, her face lost all color. The envelope fluttered to the ground.
It was like it couldn’t stand being in her hands anymore.
Karen sat hard on the curb beside me, shaking, her breathing gone thin.
“It’s probably just more of Thomas’s junk.”
Inside the bag was a thick envelope. I stared at the blocky handwriting, my hands shaking.
Karen reached over, snatching it from me before I could move. She fumbled with the seal, tore it open, and scanned the first page.
She staggered and dropped the papers. Receipts and a letter fanned out across the pavement.
I bent to pick them up, glancing at the receipt — $15,000 paid to Royal Seas Cruises. My stomach turned. Dad didn’t throw money around.
Inside the bag was a thick envelope.
