The boys were different. They tried at first, I’ll give them that. Kade showed up on time during the first few weeks, sometimes with a small gift. Jax brought groceries once or twice, and Nash helped me fix a leaky faucet.
But then the visits started taking a turn for the worse. First, they started getting shorter. Then, the complaining started.
“How much longer do you want to sit here, Bette?” Kade asked one Tuesday, checking his phone for the third time in ten minutes. “I’ve got a thing later.”
“Nothing new ever happens here,” Jax joked during one of his visits. Colt started spending most of the visit scrolling through something on his phone, barely looking at me. “Man, this is boring,” I heard more than once.
They’d stay their obligatory hour, sometimes less. They’d make small talk, but not really listen to the answer. I watched it all happen. I took notes, actually. I kept track of who brought what, who asked which questions, who seemed like they actually wanted to be there versus who was just putting in time.
Three months passed like that. Finally, I decided it was time to end the experiment and reveal the truth. I called them all over for a meeting.
You should have seen their faces when they all showed up at my house that Saturday afternoon. They gathered in my living room, sitting on the couch and chairs that Hugh and I had picked out 40 years ago. Nobody said much. They just looked at each other, then at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I owe you all an explanation,” I said. “I lied to you. I told all of you the same thing about getting my inheritance and gave each of you the same condition. I did this to test you. I wanted to see who would keep visiting me, who would actually care. And you all did. You all came every week, just like I asked.”
The room erupted. “So who gets the money?” Kade demanded, standing up.
“That wasn’t fair,” Jax snapped. “You tricked us. You played with us.”
