While Her Daughter Posted Beach Selfies, I Held My Stepmom’s Hand as She Took Her Last Breath

I used to think agony was an exaggerated word—until I watched my stepmother die.

By the end, she was bone-thin, her body swinging between fever and chills. Morphine barely helped. Some nights she screamed until her voice broke. Other nights she whimpered, clutching my hand like a frightened child.

Her daughter was nowhere near the house.

Every morning, as I changed sweat-soaked sheets and fed her spoon by spoon, my phone filled with beach photos—cocktails, white sand, captions about “living her best life.” I slept in a chair beside my stepmother’s bed because she panicked if she woke up alone.

Sometimes she whispered, “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” I always said.

I stayed anyway.

The night she died, there was no drama—just her breathing slowing, her fingers loosening around mine. Months of pain ended quietly.

Her daughter arrived two days later, annoyed by the smell of sickness, and smirked.
“She left everything to me. Enjoy being the free maid?”

I packed without argument.

But when I opened my stepmother’s bedside drawer, I froze.

Inside was a folder with my name written clearly across it.

Deeds. Ownership papers. Not for the house we lived in—but for another one. Near the sea. In another state.

The address was next to the very beach her daughter had been partying on.

The house was mine.

She’d signed it over long before she got sick.

She knew who would stay.

She made her choice quietly—and made sure it could never be undone.