I was fourteen when my mom died, and afterward Dad and I drifted apart. A year later he remarried. Karen showed up “in a cloud of sharp perfume,” called my mom’s keepsakes “junk,” and rolled her eyes whenever I mentioned her. I tried to get along, but she made it clear I didn’t belong.

On my eighteenth birthday she told me, “You’re an adult now. Time to pay rent.” She didn’t know the house was legally mine—Mom had left it to me, and the deed had just come through. One night she cornered me in the kitchen and said, “Not in my house.” I handed her the documents. Her face drained as she read them. “This is fake,” she said. I told her, “If anyone owes rent here, it’s you.”

She exploded and demanded Dad “fix it.” He whispered that I should “let her feel in charge,” but I had waited long enough. I began documenting everything—her screaming, her spending sprees, the unpaid bills she claimed she’d handled. Dad eventually noticed too.

He came home early one day and caught her with another man, laughing with her hand on his sleeve. She tried twisting the blame, but I set my folder of evidence on the table. Dad told her to leave. Soon after, she sued for support and claimed “emotional abuse,” but I used the savings Mom left me to hire a tough lawyer. The judge dismissed the case.

Months later she wrote that she’d lost everything and wanted to “come home.” I replied, “Home was never yours to begin with.” The peace that followed was the real justice.