My mom has been dead for two years now.
And her “best friend” is my stepmom.
Everything finally exploded on the night Carol decided to throw a party on my mom’s death anniversary.
My mom died of cancer.
One month, we were fighting about stupid things. Towels. I never folded them right. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and said, “Why can’t you just match the corners?” We were annoyed at each other in the normal, everyday way families are.
Two months later, a hospice nurse was standing in our living room, explaining morphine dosages while my mom stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry.
That’s how fast it happened.
Carol was there from the beginning.
Her name is Carol. She wasn’t a stranger who appeared out of nowhere after my mom died. She was my mom’s colleague. Her work friend. I grew up seeing her at our kitchen table, kicking off her heels, complaining about coworkers, sipping coffee from our mugs like she belonged there.
She hugged my mom the day she got her diagnosis.
“You’re so strong,” Carol said, squeezing her tight. “You’re going to beat this. I just know it.”
My mom smiled that small, dry smile of hers and said, “We’ll see.”
She was forty-nine years old.
Even then, I noticed something strange. Whenever Carol’s name popped up on my mom’s phone, there was a flicker in her eyes. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something heavier.
Worry.
My mom didn’t beat it.
She went from “early stage, lots of options” to “we’re talking months” so fast my brain never caught up. One day she was making lists—things to organize, bills to sort, notes for later. Two weeks later she was too weak to sit up on her own.
She died on a Tuesday afternoon.
I was holding her hand.
She said all the right things before she went. The things people say when they know time is running out. She squeezed my fingers, looked at me like she was trying to memorize my face, and then she was gone.
After the funeral, my dad wasn’t really there anymore.
He walked around the house like he was underwater. He’d stand in the kitchen holding a mug he never drank from. He’d sit on the couch staring at a TV that wasn’t even on.
I tried to help. I cleaned. I cooked. I sat near him, hoping my presence mattered.
It felt useless.
That’s when Carol started showing up more.
At first, it made sense. She’d worked with my mom. She cried at the funeral. She said all the right comforting things.
She brought casseroles. Soup. Banana bread wrapped in foil. She washed dishes without being asked. She touched my dad’s arm when she spoke. She tilted her head just slightly, like she was listening extra carefully.
“You don’t have to be alone in this,” she told him one night. “We’ve both lost her. We can help each other.”
She started calling every night.
Their phone calls got longer and longer. I’d walk past the hallway and hear my dad laughing softly. A sound I hadn’t heard since before the diagnosis.
Once, I stopped in the hall when I heard him say, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Carol.”
My stomach dropped.
Less than a year after my mom died, Carol moved in.
Then there was a backyard wedding. Small. “Respectful,” my dad said. Carol wore a pale blue dress and smiled like she’d won something.
She loved telling people, “We bonded through grief,” like it was some beautiful love story instead of something that made my skin crawl.
From day one, she went after anything that reminded us of my mom.
“Grief has an expiration date,” she’d say if I left a photo out.
“She wouldn’t want you stuck in sadness,” she added while moving my mom’s things into boxes.
Once, she took my mom’s chipped coffee mug right out of my hands.
“At some point, mourning turns into attention-seeking,” she said calmly, placing it on the highest shelf.
My dad would flinch, then smooth it over.
“Carol’s just trying to help us move forward,” he’d say. “We all need that.”
So I shut up.
For him.
The only place Carol never touched was the old barn behind the house.
The barn used to hold farm equipment. By the time I was born, it was “Mom’s space.” Paper everywhere. Binders. Boxes. Everything labeled neatly. My mom trusted paper more than people.
Carol hated it.
She called it “a depressing hoarder shed” and said it made her “itch with dust and old grief.”
So she never went inside.
She had no idea what was in there.
When the first anniversary of my mom’s death came around, I planned something quiet. A candle. A photo. Maybe a glass of wine. Just me and my mom. No speeches.
I got off work early that day.
As I pulled into the driveway, I heard loud music blasting from inside the house. Bass shaking the windows.
I froze in the doorway.
There were people everywhere.
Carol’s wine friends. Coworkers. Random guys in polos. Bottles everywhere. Laughter. Beer cans on the floor.
And in everyone’s hands—
My mom’s vintage crystal wine glasses.
The ones she kept wrapped in tissue. The ones she only used on holidays. The ones she told me would be mine someday.
Carol spotted me and raised her glass.
“Oh good, you’re home!” she said brightly. “We decided to have a celebration of life instead of a depressing death anniversary.”
One of her friends laughed. “Yeah, funerals are such a downer. This is way healthier.”
CRASH.
Two crystal glasses shattered on the tile. Red wine splashed everywhere. The guy who dropped them laughed and said, “Oops.”
Carol didn’t even flinch.
“Well,” she shrugged, “they’re just things. People cling to objects when they can’t let go.”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Then I saw the dresses.
Carol was wearing my mom’s navy wrap dress. Her friend had on the green one my mom wore to my graduation. They were dancing, spinning, wine sloshing onto the fabric.
“These are way too nice to rot in a closet,” the friend said. “You’re doing this stuff a favor.”
I walked up to Carol.
“Can you stop?” I asked quietly. “Please. Today of all days.”
She leaned in, smelling like wine and perfume.
“It’s a celebration of life, not a memorial,” she whispered, smiling. “She’s gone. I’m here now.”
She tilted her head.
“And if you can’t handle that,” she added, “maybe you’re the problem.”
Something inside me went flat.
I turned around and walked out.
I crossed the yard to the barn.
Inside, it was cool and dusty. It smelled faintly like old paper and my mom’s perfume. I went straight to the metal cabinet with the padlock.
My mom had shown me the key once.
“Only if you really need it,” she’d said.
My hands shook.
I opened the cabinet. Inside was a heavy metal box.
Documents. Emails between my dad and Carol, highlighted. Calendar pages with “coffee” dates circled. Notes in my mom’s handwriting.
“Carol inserting herself again.”
“She keeps asking about the house.”
“Strange how quickly she bonded with [Dad] after my diagnosis.”
Then I found the will.
Six months before she died, my mom changed it.
The house wasn’t my dad’s.
It was mine.
With one condition written again and again: if my dad married Carol, she got nothing.
I took photos of everything and emailed them to my mom’s lawyer.
Then I went back inside.
The party was still going.
I walked over and turned off the speaker.
Silence crashed down.
“You’re killing the vibe,” someone complained.
I handed my dad the envelope.
“Mom’s updated will,” I said.
Carol laughed. “You always do this when things are going well.”
My dad read.
His face went white.
“She planned this,” he whispered.
“The house isn’t yours,” I said to Carol. “And after tonight, you’re trespassing.”
Carol screamed.
Two weeks later, she was gone.
On the second anniversary of my mom’s death, I finally did what I’d planned.
I lit a candle. Took out a crystal glass. Poured some wine.
I raised it toward my mom’s photo.
“I kept it,” I said softly. “Like you wanted.”
And for the first time since she died, the silence felt like peace instead of punishment.