My Sister's Tears Stole My First Life, Not My Second novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Two Envelopes
Reborn at the inheritance split, Winnie refuses her sister's rigged choice, tears both trust plans in half in front of the family lawyer, and demands the $183,400 her father left her, including the money her sister spent on a horse.
The day we split my father's money, my sister told me to pick first.
Again.
Two envelopes lay on the boardroom table, one marked A and one marked B.
Tinsley rested her fingertips on them and smiled at me.
"Go on, Winnie. You choose."
I had sat in this chair before, and lost everything.
In my first life, I never told her no.
Three years ago my brother Quentin drove down to North Carolina and brought me home to the Talcotts.
My first week in Boston, Tinsley let me pick between two bedrooms.
I chose the big one with the morning sun.
Her eyes filled up, and she said it had been hers since she was three.
By supper my things were in the little room, and Quentin was calling me selfish.
When Father died, she slid these same two envelopes across this same table.
I picked the one with more money in it.
She cried, and it was hers.
They said she had more expenses. They said I was used to less.
Every time, they let me choose, and every time they took it back.
So when they handed me a husband, I said yes to that too.
He hated me for five years.
We had a son.
My son died at five, and I died in the rain a year later with my car wrapped around a guardrail.
Then I opened my eyes in this chair, with a pen in my hand and my sister's smile across the table.
Twenty-five again.
The game had been rigged the whole time.
It didn't matter which envelope I picked.
"Winnie?" Tinsley tipped her head. "Don't you want to look?"
I put two fingers on the envelopes and pushed them back across the table.
"I don't want your choices."
The family lawyer stopped writing.
"Father left me a settlement fund," I said. "One hundred eighty-three thousand, four hundred dollars. I want that. Then I'm going home to North Carolina."
Nobody moved.
Quentin's jaw went tight.
"Have you lost your mind?"
He flicked a glance at the lawyer and dropped his voice.
"Tinsley was being generous. If you can't appreciate that, fine. But a scene like this, in front of counsel? We didn't bring you home so you could embarrass this family."
To hear him tell it, walking away from the money was the disgrace.
I picked the envelopes back up.
"Fine," I said. "Then I'll choose."
I opened A.
Half the principal on my twenty-sixth birthday, and almost no strings.
B was a monthly allowance, paid out.
"I want A."
Tinsley's eyes went pink on cue.
Her hand slid off the envelope.
"It's okay," she whispered. "She's been through so much. Of course she wants the safer one."
She said it was okay, but her fingers were twisted white in the hem of her dress.
Quentin cleared his throat.
"Tinsley lives in Boston. She has the foundation, and a position to keep up. A suits her."
He took A out of my hands and put B in front of me.
"You grew up in a mechanic's house in Liberty. You don't know the first thing about managing money. An allowance is better for you."
There it was, word for word.
In my first life, he'd used that exact voice to take my choice away.
I put my hand flat on B.
"Why?"
Quentin frowned.
I raised my voice. "Why is it always my job to clean up after Tinsley?"
Tinsley went pale.
"Winnie, what are you talking about?"
"You don't know?"
I turned to her.
"You're wearing Easton Lathrop's ring. The shipping heir gave you another one in September, and it's in your jewelry box. Each of them thinks he's your fiance. You want the shipping heir, but you can't afford to cross the Lathrops. So at brunch today you're going to cry and hand Easton to me."
The room went so quiet I heard the heat come on.
In my first life, it took me years to put that together.
Quentin told me Easton had fallen for me at first sight.
Then he told Easton I'd seen him at a party and wouldn't stop until I had him.
After the wedding, Easton found out he'd been switched.
Quentin said I'd begged for the match out of jealousy.
And Easton believed him for five years.
"That's enough!"
Quentin's voice cracked across the table.
Tinsley was already crying, one hand pressed to her chest.
"I know you're still adjusting," she said. "But I've given you everything you wanted. Why would you say something so cruel?"
"Given me everything?"
A laugh came out of me, wet and ugly.
Quentin stood and put himself between us.
"Look at you. Three years, and you still act like a truck stop. Tinsley opened her home to you, and all you know how to do is lie and envy and start fights."
I pointed at the envelopes.
"When we picked rooms, she let me choose first. I chose the sunny one, she cried, and it was hers. Today she let me choose first. I chose A, her eyes went red, and A was hers."
I looked at Tinsley.
"Of course you can afford to be generous. Whatever I pick, Quentin takes it back for you."
I tore A in half.
Then I tore B in half and dropped the pieces on the table.
"If I can't keep what I choose, I don't want any of it."
Quentin slapped his palm on the wood.
"You're a Talcott. Where else would you go? Three years, and all you talk about is money. You reek of it."
"A Talcott?"
I laughed again.
"My legal name is still Winnie Honeycutt. You never filed the papers. Not in three years."
The first year, Tinsley was applying to business school, and an announcement might complicate things.
The second year, the papers were watching her engagement, and I'd be a distraction.
Then I found Mother's cassette tape, the only thing left with her voice on it.
Tinsley wanted it. Quentin took it out of my hands.
The next day it was blank.
When I screamed at her, he locked me in my room for a week and pushed the papers back again because I was "emotionally unstable."
I stood up.
"I don't want your name or your money or this act you call a family."
I walked to the door, then turned around.
"And Quentin? The ninety-eight thousand six hundred dollars Tinsley spent on a horse comes back too."
Tinsley's tears stopped halfway down her cheek.
The lawyer's pen hit the table.
And my brother didn't look at me.
He looked at the lawyer.
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