Chapter 2

“Lily, your grandfather died.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Lily was stunned.

Most of Lily’s childhood was spent with her grandfather. Her parents were busy with their work and had her grandfather babysit her most of the time and as a result she had an intimate relationship with him and thought of him as her own father.

“…”

Lily was silent throughout the entire car ride and when they reached the hospital she finally asked, “How did he die?”

“He had a heart attack.” Her father replied in a detached tone.

Lily moved her hand to the pendant that was tied around her neck. It was gifted to her by her grandfather when she was a child and never went anywhere without it.

It was a small stone. Some sort of green crystal. Lily always assumed it was emerald.

Lily followed her father to her grandfather’s room.

When she saw the corpse of her grandfather she broke down into tears. Her father barely gave the dead, cold body a glance and left the room.

-Several Days later-

“May Robert Cornelius Ladin rest in peace.” The priest ended the ceremony with a prayer and the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Lily stared at the coffin with a blank look on her face. A hand touched her shoulder. “Let’s go Lily.” Said her mother.

She was a beautiful, mature woman who looked exactly like her daughter, except she was taller and had a more defined hourglass figure that was accompanied by large breasts. Many of the males in the funeral were rudely ogling her the entire time. No one would expect her to be the mother of a 15 year old girl, as she still looked like she was in her early twenties.

The family drove to the large Victorian styled mansion of the deceased man. Inside of the living room was a man with glasses and thinning hair.

The man put on a gentle smile and shook hands with Lily’s father. “Hello, nice to finally meet you. I am Andrew Phillis and was the lawyer for your father in law. I will recite the will of Robert when everyone else arrives.”

Time went by impossibly slow as Lily was seated on the sofa. She could hear the “tick tock” of the grandfather clock in the room.

Gradually, one by one, all of the Ladin family members entered the room and found themselves a place to sit or a wall to lean on.

Lily internally groaned when she saw her uncle Fred and his two children:  Alex and Alissa, who are twins.

Her dad and Uncle Fred always had a rivalry with each other for reasons that Lily never cared about.

Lily’s father is a lawyer and Uncle Fred a prosecutor. Apparently they went up against each other in court several times before they got married and butted heads frequently. Their relationship didn’t improve at all when they became in-laws. In fact, Lily’s father almost left her on the wedding day when he found out that he was going to be related to Uncle Fred, which told a lot about their relationship.

Because of their fathers’ rivalry, the twins took on the mantle and decided that the younger generation needed to compete also and so they always had disdain for Lily and they constantly bullied her when they had the chance.

The twins were two years older than her and they also outnumbered her two to one. So there was little she could do but cry when they shoved her into the pool when she was seven years old and didn’t know how to swim.

The adults thought it was just children playing around and let them be but they actually knew that if they took one side of the children then they would get involved with the rivalry of the two fathers and so they were apathetic to Lily’s situation.

The only one that stepped in was her grandfather who actually knew what was going on and harshly berated the twins. This made them hate her even more and made them feel resentment towards their grandfather for being on Lily’s side.

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Lily’s grandfather and four children. Two older boys and two younger girls.

With the exception of her parents and Uncle Fred, her grandfather’s other children never did too well financially, mostly because they were all spoiled as children and never learned to take care of themselves. They probably believed that daddy would take care of all their problems when they left the house. Which is why they constantly asked him for money whenever they overcharged on their credit cards.

Lily’s grandmother passed away before she was born, so she had no recollection of her other than some old photos. If she were still alive then the inheritance would quite possibly have gone to her.

Lily’s grandfather was a successful author who wrote multiple best sellers and some of which later had film adaptations because of their popularity. So throughout his life he accumulated vast amounts of wealth.

“Now, let’s get started shall we?” said Mr. Phillis as he took out an envelope from his brief case and opened it.

“I must let you all know that the deceased Mr. Robert Anderson was in a sound state of mind when he wrote this will a year ago. Also, I am not exaggerating anything and am just reading exactly what is written on this letter. So I ask that you do not interrupt me and please keep your questions and comments till the end.”

Dear Family,

If you are reading this then I am probably dead. I have lived an abundant life and am satisfied with what I have accomplished. But I have two great regrets. The first is none of your business, as it happened before you were born. And the second is that I was a terrible father. I absolutely spoiled you children. I should have been a better father that disciplined you. That is why this is my last attempt to teach you something for your own good, which is why I will be giving you nothing.

“What!” yelled Uncle Jones and several other family members.

Ignoring the outcries, Mr. Phillis kept on reading.

I will only give money to my grandchildren and that is to pay for their college education. The rest will go to charity.

But all of my property such as this mansion and the vacation home in the Bahamas will go to Lily. But she will not claim ownership of it until she turns eighteen and she cannot give away or sell any of my inheritance until she is forty.

I hope that this will finally help you grow and mature and learn to rely on yourselves in the future.

I’m sorry for being such a terrible father. You may hate me now but this is for your own good.

Love with all my heart,

Robert C. Ladin

Everyone was silent. Everyone in the room looked towards me. Most of the family members, especially Alex and Alissa glared at her with jealousy. If looks could kill then I would have died dozens of time over.

I was stunned. I never expected to get all of this property. I don’t even know what to do with it.

“Lily let’s go, we’re leaving.” Said my mother as she grabbed my arm and led me out the door with my father following behind us.

“Hold on Mrs. Ladin.  Mr. Robert left his diary for your daughter.” He said as he handed me a book that was practically the size of an encyclopedia.

I took the book and stared at it blankly as my mother dragged me to the car.

“Where do you think you’re going!?” yelled Uncle Fred.

My parents ignored the yelling of my relatives and we left.