I sat there, motionless, looking at her now peaceful face. I did not scream or despair. I just felt an immense emptiness taking over my mind.
The only person I had left in this house, my silent ally, was gone forever. Trembling, I picked up my phone and dialed Michael’s number. One ring, two rings.
By the tenth ring, no one answered. I called again and again. On the fifth try, he replied with a terse, cold text message.
«I am in an important meeting with the German partners to close a deal, cannot talk. How is mom?» Reading the message, a bitter laugh escaped my lips as tears streamed down my face.
A meeting with German partners at 3:00 a.m. Chicago time? Or was he busy having a «meeting» in bed with his mistress at some luxury resort in Miami? Rage choked me.
I typed each letter, my fingers trembling on the touchscreen: «Mom passed away. Come home.»
The message was sent, and the read receipt appeared instantly. However, the only response was a prolonged silence. Outside, the rain continued to pour, cold and indifferent, like the heart of the man I called my husband.
I took my mother-in-law’s cold hand again and whispered, «Mom, rest in peace. I will go back to the town. I will find what you hid. I will not let your sacrifice be in vain.»
Michael did not come back. It was something I had expected, but when it was confirmed, I felt cold ash in my heart. He used the excuse that the project was in a critical phase.
He claimed that if he left now, he would have to pay a multi-million dollar penalty. He promised to make it up to me later. At the funeral, my cell phone was solemnly placed next to Elizabeth’s photograph.
The screen showed a video call from Michael. He appeared in an immaculate black suit, his face contorted in grief. Weeping dramatically through the screen, he cried out, «Mom, I am a terrible son. I could not make it back in time to see you one last time.»
«Mother from heaven,» he continued his performance, «bless me so that I may succeed and honor your memory as you deserve.» The relatives and neighbors who came to offer condolences clucked their tongues in sympathy.
They whispered among themselves, «Poor Michael, working so far away. He could not even come back for his own mother’s burial, but at least he said his goodbyes. You can see he has a good heart.»
Some even came over to comfort me, saying, «Be strong and handle everything for him. He left for the good of the family.» I stood there, bowing my head in thanks, but inside, I felt absolute contempt.
I looked at the face distorted by fake grief on the screen and remembered the photos of him laughing by the pool. His performance was so brilliant that if I did not know the truth, perhaps even I would have been moved. But now, those virtual tears only made me sick.
I handled everything alone, from the funeral arrangements to the cremation and greeting the guests. I moved like a shadow through the funeral home, unable to shed a single tear in public. My tears had already dried up inside during the months of caring for my mother-in-law.
After the cremation, I took the urn with the ashes and Elizabeth’s portrait and headed to her hometown. According to her last wishes, she wanted to be laid to rest there. Michael had sent me a message telling me to leave the ashes in a city columbarium to make visiting more convenient.
I flatly refused. I knew she wanted to go home, to the place where she was born and raised. It was the place where she had buried the secret of her entire life.
The bus rattled along, carrying me away from the noisy, polluted city toward the quiet but melancholic Illinois countryside. My mother-in-law’s old one-story house stood at the end of a reddish dirt road. The weeds had grown so high, they almost concealed the entrance.
The rusted iron gate creaked pitifully as I pushed it open. A smell of dampness and mustiness greeted me. I placed the urn with her ashes on the small, dust-covered mantle.
I lit a candle. The smoke swirled in the silent space, creating an atmosphere of sadness and solitude. That night, I spread a mat on the floor, right below my mother-in-law’s altar.
Listening to the crickets chirping in the yard and the wind whistling through the cracks of a broken window, I could not sleep. Elizabeth’s gaze in the photograph seemed to watch me, both stern and pleading. Her last words on that rainy night echoed in my ears.
«Under the ceramic crock where we kept the pickles, in the corner of the kitchen.» I lay there with my eyes wide open, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. I was waiting for dawn to unveil the last secret my poor mother-in-law had left me.
I felt completely alone, but strangely, I was not afraid. In that desolate place, next to the ashes of a dead woman, I felt safer than in my modern city apartment. At least here, there were no lies hiding beneath the guise of a happy family.
Just as dawn broke, with dew still blanketing the yard, I got up. I took a small shovel I found in the shed and headed to the old kitchen, a small building separate from the main house. It had been abandoned for years.
Cobwebs covered the entrance, and a strong smell of dampness and cold ash washed over me. In a corner, just as my mother-in-law had said, was a large, heavy ceramic crock, covered in the dust of time. It was the crock she used for brining pickles.
With some effort, I pushed the crock aside, revealing a packed dirt floor, damp and uneven. My heart pounded. I started to dig.
The surface was hard, but as I went deeper, the soil became softer. About two feet down, the shovel hit something hard, making a faint metallic sound. I set the shovel aside and used my hands to clear away the dirt.
It was a rusty metal tin, the kind of Danish butter cookie tin that people used to gift each other for Christmas decades ago. The tin was carefully wrapped in several layers of thick plastic to protect it from moisture. Trembling, I carried it out to the yard, into the sunlight, to open it.
The lid was sealed with rust, and I had to use the tip of the shovel to pry it open. Inside, there was no gold or jewelry as I had imagined. There was only a savings passbook from a small community bank and a sealed, yellowed envelope.
I picked up the savings passbook and opened it to the first page. The number written there stunned me. I almost dropped it.
$150,000. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, counting the zeros carefully. Yes, $150,000.
The last deposit had been recorded five years ago. I could not believe my eyes. My mother-in-law was a woman who had spent her life working the land, who dressed so frugally she could not bring herself to throw away a shirt with frayed shoulders.
Where had she gotten this enormous amount of money? Memories flooded back. About five years ago, an interstate highway project had passed through the town.
A large portion of my mother-in-law’s land had been acquired through eminent domain. At the time, Michael had asked her about the compensation, but she had vaguely said it was just a few thousand dollars. She claimed she put it in the bank for her old age.
Michael had believed her, thinking the land in that small town was worthless. He never imagined that patch of dirt held so much value. But why did she hide it from Michael?
Why did she live in poverty, saving every penny, even when she was gravely ill? I looked at the passbook and then at the sealed envelope still in the tin. Perhaps the answer was in there.
Elizabeth had hidden that money for five years without saying a word to her only son. She preferred to suffer, but she refused to give that money to Michael. A profound sadness washed over me.
She had seen her son’s true nature long ago. She knew Michael was greedy, vain, and unreliable. If that money fell into his hands, he would surely squander it on reckless schemes or a life of excess.
She did not save it out of avarice. She saved it to leave a lifeline—a final guarantee not for him, but for me, the daughter-in-law she trusted. With trembling hands, I picked up the yellowed envelope.
The glue had dried over time, and it opened easily. Inside was a document folded into quarters, a faded brown color, and a handwritten letter in purple ink. The handwriting was shaky but still legible.
I unfolded the document first. It was an adoption certificate issued by the county clerk’s office in the 1980s. The red seal, though faded, still had enough force to deliver a mortal blow to my mind.
Adoption details: «Adoptive parents: Matthew Thompson (deceased) and Elizabeth Thompson. Name of adopted child: Michael Thompson. Reason for adoption: Infant abandoned at the town clinic.»
The world seemed to spin around me. Michael was not my mother-in-law’s biological son. He was an abandoned child whom Elizabeth had taken in and raised.
This devastating secret had been buried for over 30 years, so deeply that not even Michael himself knew. I quickly opened the handwritten letter. It was a letter from Elizabeth without a specific recipient.
It seemed written for her own conscience, or perhaps for Michael’s biological parents, should they ever appear. It read:
«I found him at the doors of the clinic on a stormy night. He was barely three days old, his umbilical cord still attached. He was crying inconsolably from hunger and cold. My husband and I could not have children, so we saw him as a gift from heaven and decided to name him Michael. We swore to bury this secret so he could grow up in peace like any other child, never feeling the stigma of abandonment. I have dedicated my life to loving him, to caring for him, hoping he would grow into a good man. But perhaps, blood is thicker than water. The older he got, the more distant, calculating, and selfish he became.»
The letter continued: «My heart aches, but I still love him because he is the only son I have. Sophia, if you are reading this, it means I am already gone. I am leaving this money to you. I know you have suffered greatly because of him. Michael is not of my blood, but you have become the daughter I value most. I do not want you to be harmed. If he treats you well, give him a part. But if he behaves like a miserable wretch, it is all yours. Consider it compensation for the youth you have wasted.»