Page 39 of Single Mom's Christmas Wish

“Katherine Monroe is gone,” Chelsea says.

A few minutes later, Chelsea and I are sitting at the kitchen counter again. Maisie is still powering through breakfast. She’s got a banana to peel and execute, along with a glass of orange juice.

“My grandmother,” I whisper, reading the letter from Katherine Monroe’s attorney. “I can’t believe it.”

“What, that she’s dead? She was pretty old, wasn’t she?”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m just surprised she asked that I be notified about it. After what happened at Grandma Sally’s funeral, I didn’t imagine—”

“Oh, don’t remind me. What a shit show that was,” Chelsea sighs. “I still can’t understand what possessed that hag to show up at Sally’s funeral—and with your sister—who you didn’t even know existed.”

I shake my head slowly. It’s been almost seven years since we buried my grandma Sally, my second mother, for that matter. And I have yet to fully process what happened that day. Sally died in her sleep. Peacefully, albeit unexpectedly. There were so many people at her funeral. Friends, former coworkers, and volunteers from the community center where she’d spent most of her spare time when she wasn’t busy raising me.

“The whole neighborhood grieved for you, babe. After your parents died, you were on your own. Katherine didn’t give a shit about you then, did she?”

I shush her. “Language.”

We both look over at Maisie. She’s still watching the cartoon. I can only pray she didn’t hear us. My girl is like a sponge forprofanity. And you never know when she’s going to drop the f-bomb, either. She does it for giggles, too.

“I had no idea that my father had another life before he met my mom. I could never understand why they chose to keep it from me,” I say. “Sally never told me about them, either. I didn’t know my dad got divorced and left his firstborn daughter behind. He moved here and just… started over, I guess.”

“Katherine should’ve gone about it differently,” Chelsea says. “I saw her, I heard her, and I heard that bratty half-sister of yours, too. So much hatred and venom in that silver spoon-fed princess—”

“Hey, don’t fault Callie for anything. I can only imagine how she must’ve felt when my father walked out on her.”

“But it wasn’t your fault either, and they shouldn’t have taken it out on you the way they did,” Chelsea insists. “Remember what they said? That you’d never be a real Monroe. That your dad abandoned his family and forfeited his entire inheritance so he could be poor but happy with your mother.”

“There’s a history we don’t know about,” I remind Chelsea. “And since most of the people involved are now dead, I don’t see a point in dwelling on it. The fact is Katherine is going to be interred this Saturday. And I’m expected to attend the funeral.”

Chelsea scoffs and rolls her eyes again. “Puh-leeze. You should go there and cause a ruckus like she and Callie did at Sally’s funeral. I bet that would go down well with the elites.”

“Callie was upset. She grew up thinking her father had left her behind. I can totally understand why she got mad when she found out about me. I only had Dad for the first eight years of my life, but I had him. She never got a chance to know him. Shewas maybe three years old when he divorced her mother and abandoned her.”

“My God, it sounds like the soap opera my mom used to watch every day at three in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, who’d have known my family would turn out to be so complicated?”

Chelsea covers my hand with hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Dakota, you grew up without your parents. You hadn’t even graduated from high school when Sally died. Having Katherine and Callie verbally attack you the way they did was simply brutish, rude, and downright cruel. I will never forgive nor excuse their behavior, no matter what your dad did or didn’t do, okay? You were a kid.”

“I guess.”

“So, what’s the purpose of the letter then?”

I go over it again. “It says Katherine died of an aneurysm and that she’s going to be buried next to her husband on Saturday. The will be read that same afternoon, and apparently, that’s the part for which my presence is requested. It says, and I quote, ‘You need not attend the funeral service itself,’ which is code for, ‘Don’t come and cause a scene like she did at your grandma’s funeral.’”

“That’s rich,” Chelsea chuckles softly, then stills, her eyes suddenly wide. “Wait, wait, hold up. Reading of the will?”

“So, it says here.”

“A reading of the will.”

“There’s a will, and it will be read, yes,” I shoot back with a perky eyebrow.

Chelsea leans forward. “Dakota, are you not hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth? You are going to attend a reading of Katherine Monroe’s last will and testament. The woman was filthy rich.”

“She cut my father off. We grew up poor. And didn’t we just talk about what she did at Sally’s funeral?” I ask, not wanting to imagine any possible scenarios that could come out of this hot mess that is the Monroe dynasty. I’m not expecting a dime.

I’d had enough of those people in the few minutes that I had to endure at Sally’s service to last me a lifetime. I have no intention of dealing with their kind ever again. While I may find excuses for Callie, and while I do wish I had her as a sister, as a part of our family—even if only for a rare weekend or occasional holiday—I cannot have that kind of vitriol in my life.

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