My Best Friend Stole My Dead Mother’s Baby Name. So I Stole Her Husband’s Family Legacy And A $200,000 Trust Fund. Did I Go Too Far?

Conflicting Emotions

I felt the weight of what this name represented pressing down on me, and it had nothing to do with Jenna or revenge or anything I’d been thinking about when I chose it. After Aurelia left, I lasted maybe 10 minutes before I started crying. Not pretty crying either, but the ugly kind where you can’t catch your breath and your nose runs and you can’t stop even when you want to.

Dean found me on the bathroom floor and just sat down next to me, pulling me against his chest while I sobbed into his shirt. I told him I chose this name to hurt Jenna, not to honor a century of family history, not to carry on something that meant everything to people I didn’t even know.

He rubbed my back and let me cry it out. When I finally calmed down enough to breathe normally, he said the name could mean both things. That I could have chosen it for the wrong reasons, and it could still turn into something right. That intentions and outcomes don’t always match up.

I asked him how I was supposed to live with that, with knowing I’d use something sacred as a weapon. He said the same way everyone lives with their mistakes—by trying to do better going forward. I wasn’t sure I believed him, wasn’t sure I could separate the revenge from the legacy. But I let him hold me anyway because I didn’t know what else to do.

The Trust Fund

The trust fund lawyer called a week later, introducing himself as Fabian Painter and saying he needed to meet with us to handle some paperwork. We set up an appointment at his office for the following Tuesday, and Dean and I drove there with Maggie in the back seat, both of us quiet and tense.

Fabian’s office was in one of those old buildings downtown with wood paneling and leather chairs that smelled like old books. He was maybe 60, with gray hair and reading glasses, and he laid out a stack of documents on his desk that looked intimidating. He explained that Aurelia had set up the trust fund almost 20 years ago, back when Diane was pregnant with Ryan, specifically for whoever carried on the Margaret Rose name.

The fund had been growing all this time, invested carefully, and was now worth just over $200,000. Fabian went through the terms carefully, explaining that Maggie would have access to the money for college expenses, starting a business, or buying a home, with specific distributions at ages 18, 25, and 30.

He said Aurelia had been very specific about wanting the money to help the next Margaret Rose build a good life, to give her opportunities that previous generations hadn’t had. As he talked, I felt the situation getting more and more complicated. Felt the weight of this gift that came from my worst impulses.

Dean squeezed my hand under the table and I squeezed back, and we signed all the papers that made Maggie’s future more secure while making my guilt heavier.

The Olive Branch

Three months passed with no contact from Jenna, and I’d started to think maybe that was just how things would be now. Former best friends who avoided each other in our small town.

Then my phone buzzed with a text from her number. Just three words: “Can we talk”

No question mark, no explanation. Just those three words that made my heart start racing. I stared at my phone for 20 minutes, reading and rereading the message, my thumb hovering over the keyboard.

Dean asked what was wrong, and I showed him the text. He said I should do whatever felt right, but that he’d support me either way.

I finally typed back that I was willing to meet, and my hands shook so badly I had to retype it twice to fix the typos. She responded immediately with a suggestion to meet at Riverside Park, halfway between our houses, the next day at 10:00. I agreed and spent the rest of the night unable to sleep, playing out a hundred different versions of what she might say and what I might say back.

The Meeting

The park was almost empty when I got there, just a few joggers and one older man walking his dog. I pushed Maggie’s stroller along the path until I saw Jenna coming from the other direction with Celeste’s stroller. We both stopped about 10 feet apart, like we needed that buffer zone.

For five full minutes, neither of us said anything. Just stood there pushing our strollers back and forth slightly, the way you do to keep babies calm. I studied the ground, the trees, anything but Jenna’s face. I could tell she was doing the same thing.

Finally, she took a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really sorry.”

The words came out rushed, like she’d been practicing them. She said she didn’t understand what the name meant to me until she watched me take something that meant everything to Ryan’s family. Until she saw how it felt to have something precious stolen. Her voice cracked on the last word, and I finally looked up at her, saw that she’d been crying before she even got here.

I wanted to stay angry, wanted to hold on to the righteous fury that had fueled me for months. But standing there looking at her swollen eyes and slumped shoulders, I couldn’t find it anymore.

“I’m sorry too,” I told Jenna, and the words felt strange coming out but true at the same time.

I said I wanted to hurt her the way she hurt me. That I’d succeeded, but it didn’t feel the way I thought it would.

She started crying harder, and I started crying too. We stood there in this park with our sleeping babies between us, both of us crying over the mess we’d made of everything. Celeste stirred in her stroller and Maggie made a little sound, but neither of them woke up—tiny and oblivious to their mothers falling apart 10 feet away from each other.

I grabbed tissues from my diaper bag and handed one to Jenna, and we both laughed a little at how ridiculous we must look. Two grown women sobbing in a park on a Tuesday morning.