I defended my parents initially, making excuses about how Jillian needed more support or how perhaps they saw something in her that I couldn’t recognize. But deep down, I knew David was right. The question was why?
Why would my parents so obviously favor their youngest child when I had done everything right? When David proposed, my parents’ reaction was tepid at best. My mother arranged a modest engagement dinner at the country club.
Nothing like the extravaganza I knew would have been planned had Jillian become engaged to someone from their social circle. “A teacher, really, Amanda?” My mother had whispered when she thought I couldn’t hear her speaking to my father.
She could have had her pick of the Ashton boy or the Winthrop heir.” David and I married anyway, buying a modest colonial home 30 minutes from Lake View Manor. I continued working for the family business, trying to prove my worth despite the glass ceiling my parents had installed above me.
Meanwhile, Jillian flitted from department to department within the company, receiving praise for the most basic accomplishments while my successes were treated as expected. Ethan, for his part, wanted nothing to do with real estate. He pursued music with a passion that both irritated and relieved our parents.
Irritated because it wasn’t the path they had envisioned for their son, but relieved because it meant he wasn’t competing for control of the family empire. That battle, it seemed, was solely between Jillian and me, though the playing field was far from level. Through it all, Grandpa Harold remained my champion.
He would invite me to lunch regularly, asking pointed questions about the business and nodding approvingly at my observations. As I entered my 30s, I began to hope that perhaps when the time came for the next leadership transition, Grandpa’s influence might tip the scales in my favor, despite my parents’ obvious preference for Jillian.
Little did I know that a far more complex game was being played behind the scenes, one that would eventually expose the rotten core at the center of the Blake family fortune. Two years before everything fell apart, Grandpa Harold began to decline.
At first, it was subtle, forgetting names, misplacing his reading glasses, telling the same story twice in one afternoon. Given that he was 84, no one was particularly alarmed. Age catches up with everyone eventually, but by the following spring, his decline accelerated dramatically.
He moved from his wing of Lake View Manor into a suite specially outfitted with medical equipment. A full-time nurse was hired, and family visits became scheduled affairs rather than casual drop-ins. Despite my increasingly demanding work schedule, I made time to visit Grandpa Harold at least twice a week.
I would bring fresh flowers for his room and sit beside his bed, updating him on the business, even though my parents insisted he could no longer follow complex conversations. “He finds comfort in your voice,” my mother would say dismissively. “But don’t bother him with business matters. Dr. Reynolds says stress could worsen his condition.
There were moments during those visits when I could have sworn grandpa was more lucid than everyone claimed. His eyes would sharpen when I mentioned certain properties or deals, and occasionally he would ask surprisingly specific questions before lapsing back into vague pleasantries.
I mentioned these moments to my father once, who dismissed them as sundowning, temporary periods of clarity, common in dementia patients. As grandpa’s health apparently worsened, I noticed significant changes in the family business.
