Chapter 16 - The Desperate Voicemails
The confrontation in Sterling’s office had ended within twenty minutes. Brenda’s inexperienced attorney took one look at the certified bank records, turned pale, and whispered to her that they needed to leave immediately before she incriminated herself further. Brenda had stormed out, shrieking that her daughters were ungrateful vipers who would rot in hell for dragging their own mother through the mud.
By that evening, the reality of her legal quarantine had set in.
I sat on my sofa, reviewing the draft agreement for the transfer of the remaining trust assets into an independent dual-signatory account for Briana and me. My phone rested on the glass coffee table. Over the course of three hours, the screen illuminated repeatedly: thirteen missed calls, followed by seven voicemails.
Briana was in the kitchen preparing tea, the whistle of the kettle cutting through the silence of the apartment. She walked out with two mugs, her face weary but calm.
"Is that her again?" Briana asked, nodding toward the blinking notification icon.
"Every twenty minutes," I answered. "Put it on speaker. Let’s hear what narrative she’s selling tonight."
I tapped the screen and pressed play on the third message.
The speaker crackled, and Brenda’s voice filled the room—trembling, high-pitched, slipping rapidly from patronizing affection to venomous rage.
*"Sylvia, darling, please... pick up the phone. You’re misunderstanding everything. Grandma Eleanor hated me! She hated your father! That money wasn't a gift; it was a trap she set to drive a wedge between us! I only managed those funds to protect you girls from squandering it when you were too young to understand the value of a dollar. Do you think I wanted to buy that car? I needed reliable transportation to take Briana to her interviews! Every single sacrifice I made was for this family!"*
A three-second pause filled with muffled sobbing followed, before her tone abruptly hardened into a shrill growl:
*"You think you’re so smart with your forensic accountants and your fancy Manhattan lawyers? You're destroying your sister’s future, Sylvia! When people find out our family is in probate litigation, Briana will never be accepted into decent society! No respectable man will touch her! You are a bitter, jealous spinster trying to drag everyone down to your miserable level! Call me back before I have your uncle call the district attorney!"*
The voicemail beeped and terminated.
Briana let out a dry, humorless laugh, taking a slow sip of her chamomile tea. "Notice how she didn't mention Grandma’s signature being forged? Or the fact that she took twenty thousand dollars in cash out the week before my college tuition was due, while telling me the bursar's office made an error and I had to drop two classes?"
"She will never acknowledge reality," I said. "Because acknowledging reality means admitting she isn't the martyr she spent her life pretending to be."
Then came a ping on Briana’s phone. It was an email forwarded by Aunt Clara, Brenda’s older sister, sent to every relative on Dad’s and Brenda’s side of the family. The subject line read: *FAMILY TRAGEDY: PRAYERS NEEDED FOR OUR WAYWARD DAUGHTERS.*
The email was an elaborate fabrication claiming that I had suffered an emotional breakdown, manipulated Briana into cutting ties with her mother, and was attempting to seize Brenda’s modest retirement savings through legal loopholes. At the bottom was a GoFundMe link Brenda had already set up, titled: *Support Brenda Vance’s Legal Defense Against Slander.*
Briana stared at the email, her jaw tightening. "She's trying to crowd-fund a legal defense by slandering us to Grandma’s living relatives."
"Let her," I said calmly. "Aunt Clara doesn't know the surrogate court has already issued a subpoena for Brenda’s tax filings from 2014 through 2023. Every lie she tells in public is another exhibit in our motion for summary judgment."
"I'm not waiting for Tuesday to shut this down," Briana said suddenly, setting her mug down with definitive authority. "She used my name to justify her greed for ten years. She told everyone I was her fragile little doll who needed to be protected. Tomorrow morning, I’m replying to that family email."
"Briana, you don't have to engage with them—"
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"No, Sylvia," she interrupted, looking at me with fierce clarity. "You spent years shielding me from her bills and her manipulation. It’s my turn to speak for myself."
***