“We Gave Your Ticket to My Mom – The Grandkids Love Her More.” Just Moments Later…

Monster Instead of Grandma

I opened the link. Valencia appeared on the screen. She was sitting against the background of the peeling motel wall, disheveled, with tear-stained eyes, clutching a frightened Zuri to herself.

The video was titled: “Monster Instead of Grandma: How Mother-in-Law Left Grandkids to Die on the Street.”

Valencia sobbed into the camera, wiping tears with her sleeve. “Help us! We are stuck in the Maldives! My mother-in-law Yulia, a well-known financier in Atlanta, tricked us here and blocked all cards! She wants us to starve to death! Look at these children, they haven’t eaten properly for 2 days!”

She continued, “She is taking revenge on us because we brought my elderly mom along! People I beg you, spread this video! Let everyone know what a monster she is!”

She moved the camera to Odessa who immediately adopted the pose of a dying swan clutching her heart. “I just wanted to see the ocean before I die,” croaked Odessa. “And she… she destroyed us.”

The video had already gathered 10,000 views. Comments poured in like hail: “Horror,” “Punish the witch,” “Poor babies.”

I felt blood rush to my face. Not from fear, from fury. They decided to play dirty. They decided to use children as a shield.

They thought public opinion would force me to surrender. They forgot who I am. I am not a dandelion grandmother.

I am a CFO who survived the corporate wars of the ’90s. I know how to take a hit. I dialed Julian.

I asked, as soon as he picked up the phone, “Did you see?”

“Saw it. We are already preparing a response. We have all the statements, all the chat logs, the screenshot of the non-refundable ticket contract you sent them. And by the way, the footage from the airport cameras where Valencia hands over your passport. I know the head of security there; he helped publish it.”

I said, “Everything with numbers. Let people see not emotions but accounting.”

The Price of Free Cheese

An hour later Julian posted a response video on my former firm’s official page and sent a press release to all major blogs like The Shaderoom that had managed to repost Valencia’s hysteria.

The headline was simple: “The Price of Free Cheese: Expense Report.”

There were no tears in the video. There were dry facts. Slides with bank statements: Son’s family monthly allowance $5,000. Purchase of tickets to Maldives $15,000 gift.

Attempted ticket theft at the airport video fact. Theft of money from children’s account by Valencia Vaughn—handbags, cosmetics $4,000.

And the final chord: a screenshot of my message to Sterling proposing to sell the office to which he responded with curses. The bombshell effect was instantaneous.

Commentators who an hour ago wished me death now turned their pitchforks in the other direction. “So she’s a thief,” “Granny Odessa is faking it living it up on grandkids’ money,” “Ms. Vaughn you are a saint for tolerating them so long. Kick them to the curb.”

Meanwhile in the motel in the Maldives, the final scene of this tragic comedy was playing out. Sterling, inspired by despair, tried to hack into his business security system to withdraw at least some money from the company accounts.

He hoped I hadn’t managed to block everything. He sat with the laptop on his knees, sweaty with a wild look. “Come on, come on,” he whispered entering the admin password.

The screen blinked red. “Access Denied: Account blocked by Founders Initiative. Administrative investigation underway regarding attempted unauthorized access.”

Sterling punched the keyboard. Keys flew in all directions. “No! She closed everything! Everything!”

Valencia, who was reading new comments under her video, dropped her phone. “They hate us,” she whispered. “Sterling, they are writing that I am a thief. They are writing that Odessa is a scammer.”

Odessa, hearing her name, suddenly stopped feigning a heart attack. She got up from the bed, her face calm and focused.

She went to her suitcase and started quickly looking for something in a hidden pocket. Valencia looked at her with hope. “Mama? Do you have a plan?”

Odessa grumbled, “I do,” pulling out a thick envelope.

The Last Ticket

She opened it. Inside lay a stack of $100 bills. A thick, hefty stack.

The very money Valencia had borrowed from the kid’s fund and given to her mother for safekeeping, plus what Odessa had saved over years of living at my expense.

Sterling’s eyes lit up. “Money? Odessa you saved us! How much is there? Enough for tickets for everyone?”

Odessa looked at her son-in-law then at her daughter. In her gaze there was neither love nor pity, only the cold calculation of a survivor.

“There’s 3,000 here. Just enough for one economy class ticket. The nearest flight. For one.”

Valencia froze. “Ma? But there are five of us! We’ll buy for the kids—”

Odessa interrupted her. She zipped up her purse and hid the envelope in her bra. “You’ll buy for the kids yourselves. You are young, you’ll earn it. And I am an old woman; it’s bad for me to worry. I am flying out.”

Valencia couldn’t believe her ears. “You… you are leaving us? Mama you are abandoning the grandkids! You screamed that you loved them more than life!”

Odessa cut her off. “Love is love but looking out for number one is more important. And anyway, Valencia, this is all your fault. Shouldn’t have angered the mother-in-law. You brewed the porridge; you eat it.”

She grabbed her suitcase and headed for the door. Sterling rushed at her. “Stop! Give the money! That is stolen money! That is my children’s money!”

Odessa deftly dodged and stuck out a hand with long sharp nails. “Don’t come near me son-in-law! I’ll scream! I’ll say you beat me! The police here are strict. Want to go to a foreign prison?”

Sterling recoiled. He knew she would do it. Odessa walked out of the room slamming the door.

A minute later they heard her haggling with a taxi driver on the street. Valencia slid down the wall to the floor and howled. Not cried, howled like a beaten dog.

Sterling stood in the middle of the room looking at the closed door and realized that the bottom which he thought they reached yesterday turned out to be false. The real bottom was here.

They were left alone. Without money. Without housing. With a disgraced name. And with two hungry children who looked at their parents and for the first time in their lives saw them for who they really were: weak, pathetic, and betrayed by those they considered their support.

And at that time I was looking at the laptop screen where the reputation index graph of my family collapsed into the negative zone. And I didn’t care. I was already booking myself a table at a restaurant for one.