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My daughter-in-law lived by one creed: where the money is, that's where the love is.
After my grandson was born, she set down a rule:
Every month there would be a livestream. Between us and her parents, whoever ranked number one on the gifting leaderboard that month, that was the house the three of them would go live in.
For five years, just to earn the right to see the child, my husband and I poured millions into that leaderboard every single month.
But no matter how much we spent, we never got past number two.
The latest livestream had just ended when my daughter-in-law, Caroline Morton, dropped a screenshot of the rankings into the big family group chat:
"Some people talk a good game, always going on about how they'll give the child everything, but the moment it actually costs them something, their true colors come out."
"My parents only make three thousand a month, but to be with their grandson, they took out a loan without a second thought."
"Still, I've always been a soft-hearted person, so I'll give you two one last chance."
"If you still can't bear to spend on your own grandson, then from now on, Riley takes my surname."
"As for the two of you, we won't raise you in life and we won't bury you in death. Every tie between us is cut, completely!"
...
The family group chat went dead silent.
But Caroline didn't care in the slightest about everyone's silence. She kept sending voice messages:
"Like I always say, where the money is, that's where the love is."
"My parents are just an ordinary working family. They make maybe three thousand a month, but for their grandson they'll take out loans of millions to hit that leaderboard."
"And the child's own grandparents, sitting on a fortune, won't spend a dime. In five years they haven't seen the child even once!"
My husband, Owen Gilbert, was breathing hard, his chest heaving.
I saw he was about to fire back, and I reached out at once and stopped him.
I said nothing.
Five years of grievance, five years of swallowed anger, all of it surged up in that moment.
Just then, another new voice message popped up in the chat.
It was our son, Sebastian Gilbert.
My heart lifted, and I opened it right away.
After all, we were his parents. We'd given him a comfortable life all along, never once shortchanged him.
But all I heard was Sebastian clicking his tongue, impatient:
"Dad, Mom, the two of you are just heartless! What kind of grandparents act like this? Aren't you afraid people will laugh if word gets out?"
"You two are old fools. Can money follow you into your coffin? Since you've chosen to act like this, don't blame us for turning on you."
"We're not going to keep kissing up to people who can't be bothered with us. We're done forcing it."
His voice was thick with disgust and contempt.
The hand holding my phone froze, and my whole mind went blank.
I stared at the screen in disbelief, my head empty, almost thinking I'd misheard.
Owen couldn't hold his fury back any longer. He raised his arm and smashed his phone hard against the wall.
The screen shattered instantly.
The room fell quiet, nothing left but the two of us breathing hard.
I couldn't believe these were the words of the son I'd cherished for over twenty years.
Sebastian had been sickly and frail from the time he was small, his body always weak, forever running fevers, coughing, wheezing, one thing after another that never seemed to end.
From the time he was little, Owen and I built our whole world around him.
Back then the company was just getting off the ground, right at the critical stretch when it needed us pushing for numbers and scaling up.
But every single time we'd lined up an important client, ready to head out and close a deal, Sebastian would suddenly fall ill.
How many times did we drop deals worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions, just like that.
We would rather put the company's growth on hold, rather let every opportunity slip away, than leave our sick son home alone.
The relatives in the group chat saw how tense things had gotten and jumped in to smooth it over.
But Sebastian wanted none of it. He sent another voice message straightaway, self-righteous:
"Everyone can stop trying to talk us down. People know the truth in their hearts."
"Those who get it will get it. If they want to keep pretending, there's nothing we can do."
"At the end of it, what kind of real grandparents go a full five years without seeing their grandchild even once? It comes down to this: they don't care! They just don't care!"
I couldn't hold it in any longer. Pressing down the bitterness and anger in my chest, I put it back to him in the chat:
"Is it that we didn't want to see him? Five years, and every visitation slot went to your in-laws. We spent millions and still couldn't win the chance. How were we supposed to see him?"
The moment my message went out, Sebastian's voice came right back over it:
"And whose fault is that? At the end of the day it's still that you two didn't try hard enough!"
"If you really wanted to see the child, how could you not? My in-laws were willing to take out loans and give everything they had for their grandson. And you? A measly few million, like you're brushing off a beggar?"
Every word, every line, aimed straight at the heart.
My chest ached.
Before I could even reply, Sebastian's last message popped up in the chat:
"To make up for your failure as grandparents, on the next livestream, no matter how much you two give, when the system settles the totals, five million will be deducted straight off and credited to my in-laws!"
