I Refused to Babysit My DIL’s Other Kids for Free — Then I Saw What She Did the Next Morning

My daughter-in-law, Megan, has two children from her previous marriage and a baby with my son.
One afternoon, she asked if I could watch all three kids while she worked an extra shift.
Without thinking much about it, I said I would happily watch my grandson for free, but if I was expected to care for the other two as well, she would need to pay me.
Megan went completely quiet.
Then she simply said, “Okay.”
The next morning, I arrived at her house.
Only my grandson was there.
Her two older children were gone.

On the kitchen counter was a note.
“Don’t worry. I found someone willing to treat all three kids like family.”
My stomach dropped.
Later, I learned she had taken the older two to her elderly neighbor, who had volunteered to watch them without charging anything.
That afternoon, my grandson kept asking where his brother and sister were.
“They always play with me,” he said.
That sentence hit harder than Megan’s note.
I had been thinking in terms of biology.
The children didn’t.
To them, they were simply siblings.
When Megan came home, I apologized.
I told her I had been wrong to separate the kids based on which one shared my blood.
After that, when they visited, I stopped calling them “her children” and “my grandson.”
They were just the kids.
And eventually, all three started calling me Grandma.