My Daughter Reacted Strongly When I Refused To Give Her The Money From Selling My Farm. My Older Son Took Her Side And Crossed A Line. Twenty Minutes Later, Both Of Them Regretted What They’d Done.

I also thought about buying a used truck, but in good condition, because I was tired of depending on the public bus to go to town. But above all, there was something very special I wanted to do with that money—something I had been secretly planning, and which I knew would change the lives of many people. However, it was not yet the time to reveal it.

I didn’t even dare to say it out loud to myself because I was afraid the emotion would betray me. Everything changed one Thursday afternoon when I was watering my tomato plants. I heard the engine of a car approaching along the dirt road that leads to my house.

And when I looked up, I saw my daughter Patricia’s white car parking in front of my door. I was very surprised to see her on a weekday because she worked in an office in the city and normally only visited me on Sundays. Patricia got out of the car with a strange smile—one of those smiles that I knew very well because I had seen them since she was a little girl.

It was the smile she put on when she wanted to ask me for something important, or when she had played a trick. She was wearing a yellow dress I had never seen her in before, high-heeled shoes that sank into the dirt of my yard, and a large handbag hanging from her arm. “Mom, what a lovely surprise to find you out here,” she said, approaching to give me a kiss on the cheek.

“I need to talk to you about something very important.”

I invited her into the house and prepared a glass of cool water with ice. We sat in my small living room, she on the sofa and I in my favorite chair, the wooden rocking chair that had been my grandmother’s. Patricia seemed nervous.

She played with her car keys and avoided looking me directly in the eyes. “Mom,” she began softly, “yesterday I was talking to Mrs. Judy, the one who lives near where your property was, and she told me something that left me very surprised.”

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