PART 2:
It had originally belonged to her grandmother, a white two-story farmhouse with a wraparound porch, sitting on three acres of land. Her grandmother passed it down to her mother, and when her mother died in 1995, the house became Margaret’s.
Diane received the life insurance money.
Margaret received the house.
That was what their mother had wanted, and that was how it had been settled.
Robert worked as a carpenter, building furniture in the workshop behind the house. His work was known across the area, with people traveling from neighboring counties to buy the tables, chairs, and cabinets he crafted by hand from local wood. He was never a wealthy man, but he was a good one—steady, honest, and dependable.
They never had children.
Something had been wrong with Margaret, according to the doctors. They had tried for years, spending money they did not have on treatments that never worked. Eventually, they accepted it. They had each other, the house, and the life they had built together.
And Margaret had Diane.
Her younger sister, five years her junior, was the one everyone noticed. She was beautiful, unpredictable, and always seemed to know exactly what to say to get what she wanted. Their mother used to say Diane could charm the birds right out of the trees.
And she could.
That was what made her dangerous.
She had a way of making people believe anything, of making them feel whatever she needed them to feel, of guiding them into decisions while convincing them it had been their own idea all along.
Margaret never saw that side of her.
She only saw her little sister.
The girl she had protected their entire lives, the one who cried in her arms after her first husband left, the one who called in the middle of the night whenever she felt scared, lonely, or broke…⬇️🫢
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