When my adopted daughter invited us to dinner

A Calculation for Replacement

She’d done the math on replacing me.

“Plus, Natalie wants more kids. You had a hysterectomy. Dad could have the big family he wanted.”

Robert had never wanted more kids; we discussed it extensively.

“Megan, we chose you. We didn’t need more kids.”

But she wasn’t listening.

“Natalie’s been taking care of herself. She does yoga. She doesn’t stress eat like mom.”

I’d gained 15 pounds during the pandemic while working in the ICU watching people die.

“She’s interesting. She traveled before she had me, not like mom who’s never left the state.”

I hadn’t traveled because we’d spent everything on Megan’s education and therapy and activities.

“Dad, Natalie’s lease is up tomorrow. She needs somewhere to stay. If mom really loved you, she’d want you to help.”

That’s when Robert exploded. He slammed his hands on the table and told Megan this was the sickest thing he’d ever seen. His chair tipped backward and crashed against the wall behind him.

Natalie reached for his arm, but he jerked away like she’d burned him.

“We’re leaving right now,”

he told me, and his voice shook with anger I’d never heard before. Megan’s face changed for just a second, and I saw something that looked like doubt or maybe fear. But then her expression went hard again.

She crossed her arms and told Robert he was overreacting. Natalie stood up and tried to touch his shoulder, but he backed toward the door. I grabbed my purse and followed him out while Megan called after us that we were being rude to her mother.

The door slammed behind us, and I heard Natalie saying something about how she understood we needed time. Robert walked so fast to the car I had to jog to keep up. His hands shook when he tried to unlock the door, and he dropped his keys on the pavement.

I picked them up and unlocked it myself because he was breathing too hard to do it. We got in and he gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white.

“How long do you think she’s been planning this?”

he asked me. His voice was quieter now but scarier somehow. I told him months probably, based on how much personal information Natalie had about us.

“She knew about the birthmark on your shoulder,”

I said.

“She knew your morning routine and your favorite books.”

Robert hit the steering wheel with his palm and said,

“Megan’s been weaponizing our marriage problems against us. She’s treating us like we’re her enemies instead of her parents.”

I watched him try to calm down enough to drive. He put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it yet. His hands were still shaking. We sat there for maybe five minutes before he finally started the car.

The drive home was quiet except for the sound of him breathing hard through his nose. I kept replaying the dinner in my head and seeing Natalie touch his arm. I saw Megan showing her photos of him like she was setting them up on a date.

When we pulled into our driveway, Robert turned off the car but didn’t get out. He just sat there staring at our house.

“This is our home,”

he said.

“We raised her here. How could she do this to us?”

I didn’t have an answer, so I just reached over and took his hand. Inside, Robert pulled me into his arms right there in the kitchen. He held me tight and said he needed me to know that nothing Megan said was true.

Yes, he’d mentioned feeling lonely, but he meant he missed me during my hospital shifts. He didn’t mean our marriage was failing. He said it over and over like he was afraid I wouldn’t believe him.

That’s when I broke down crying because I’d been scared he actually wanted out. I’d been terrified that what Megan said about him being unhappy was real. Robert held me while I sobbed about how Megan turned all my sacrifices into evidence I’m a bad wife.

All those double shifts to pay for her graduate school, and she made it sound like I was abandoning him. He rubbed my back and told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him. We stood there in our kitchen holding each other until my tears soaked through his shirt.

The Surveillance Targets

The next morning, I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. I grabbed my phone and started scrolling through old family text messages. That’s when I realized Megan had been screenshotting everything.

There were messages about Robert’s work schedule and his favorite meals and things I’d said about being tired from the hospital. I went further back and found texts where I’d complained about gaining weight during the pandemic. Natalie had known about that too.

She’d made that comment about stress eating. I got out of bed and went to my closet where I kept my journal on the top shelf. I flipped through it and saw pages that looked slightly bent, like someone had been reading them.

My hands started shaking. Natalie had known things I only wrote down privately: things about feeling distant from Robert during my long shifts, things about worrying he might leave me someday. Robert came into the bedroom and saw me sitting on the floor with my journal.

“What’s wrong?”

he asked. I showed him the bent pages and told him I think Megan’s been reading this when she visits. He went down the hall to his home office, and I heard him opening drawers.

When he came back, his face was pale.

“My desk drawers are disarranged,”

he said.

“Some of my papers are out of order.”

We looked at each other and understood our daughter had been treating us like surveillance targets for months. She’d been collecting information about us to give to Natalie. She’d been spying on her own parents.

Over the next three days, Megan sent 47 text messages; I counted them. Some tried to make me feel guilty for rejecting her birth mother. Others told Robert he was wasting his life with someone who didn’t appreciate him.

She sent long paragraphs about how adoptive parents should be grateful when birth parents want a relationship. She said I was being selfish and controlling. She said Robert deserved happiness with someone who put family first.

I stopped reading them after the first day, but they kept coming. My phone buzzed constantly with her messages. Then she started posting on social media.

I saw it when my friend Sandra sent me a screenshot asking if I was okay. Megan had written a long post about adoptive parents who can’t accept their children’s need for biological connection. She didn’t use our names, but it was obvious who she meant.

She talked about mothers who are threatened by birth mothers and fathers who are too weak to stand up for what they want. My friends started sending me concerned messages. Some asked what was happening; others just sent hearts and said they were thinking of me.

I felt sick knowing people were reading her lies about us. Three days after the dinner, Robert’s phone rang while we were eating breakfast. It was his assistant Daryl calling from the office.

Robert put it on speaker and Daryl said a woman named Natalie had come in asking to schedule a divorce consultation. She specifically requested Robert. Daryl thought it was strange she knew so many personal details about Robert’s life.

She knew what time he usually arrived at work. She knew the names of his partners. She knew he handled high-asset divorces.

Daryl wanted Robert to know before deciding whether to take the meeting. Robert thanked him and hung up. He looked at me across the table and said the harassment is following me to work now.

His hands were shaking again like they had in the car. I made a decision right then. I called a private investigator I knew from the hospital who’d worked on some cases involving patient fraud.

I told him I needed background information on someone. I gave him Natalie’s name and what little information we had about her. He said he’d look into it and get back to me.

Three days later, he sent me a report that made my stomach drop. Natalie had a pattern of befriending younger women with family money. She’d gained their trust over several months.

Then she’d borrow large amounts of money she never repaid. The investigator found four different women in two states who’d filed complaints against her. One had gotten a restraining order.

I read through the whole report twice and realized Megan wasn’t her first target. She’d done this before.