Page 248 of Caspian: The Not So Friendly Ghost

I laughed. “Enough for you to go after your dream without worrying about a paycheck while you figure it out.”

Willow’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, bitch. Not calling you a bitch, but that kind of financial freedom deserved a cuss word. But sis… we’re about to have so much fuckin’ fun!”

I chuckled.

Even after the bank confirmed that the transfer was legitimate, I kept expecting somebody to call and tell me there had been a mistake. Every time I opened my banking app and saw that balance, a small part of me expected alarms to start going off somewhere or somebody in a suit to show up at the mansion asking me to kindly return what did not belong to me. Eventually, though, I decided to take Henrietta’s advice.

I could spend the rest of my life being afraid of the money, or I could use some of it to take care of myself and the people I loved.

Now, I didn’t lose my damn mind and start shopping for luxury yachts, private islands, or anything else that required me to have a helipad.

I still had entirely too many unanswered questions for that.

What started as a little shopping quickly turned into Willow behaving like she had been waiting her entire life for somebody to give her unrestricted access to a checkout button and Kaidence discovering that apparently Spider-Man merchandise came in every form known to mankind.

Granny was another story entirely. She was old-school enough that designer labels meant absolutely nothing to her.

Willow made the mistake of mentioning Louis Vuitton, and Granny frowned at her and asked, “Who is Louis, and why the hell is his name on a purse that cost that much?”

Willow laughed so hard she nearly slid out of her chair, and after that, I decided Granny would be happier if I stopped trying to introduce her to luxury brands and simply took her shopping somewhere she actually liked.

Church clothes, however, were a different matter.

Granny might not have cared about a handbag with somebody’s initials all over it, but when Sunday morning came around, that woman believed in showing up in her absolute best.

Granny had always taken pride in looking nice for church, but a woman she’d been trading side-eyes with for fifty years still attended the same congregation, which gave her a little extra motivation. Another fifty years could pass, and Granny still wouldn’t give that woman the satisfaction of thinking she had fallen off. Designer purses might not have interested her, but a sharp church suit and a matching hat? That was money she could understand spending. So we went church-clothes shopping for her instead.

By the time she finally announced that she had enough, her total was still pretty hefty, although nowhere near what I would have happily spent on her. I tried to convince her to keep going, but Granny waved me off and told me she wasn’t about to start “buying shit just because the money was there.”

I let her have that one… for the moment.

There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for any of them. After everything, my family had carried me through, being able to finally give something back without checking my account first or wondering what bill would have to wait until payday felt better than anything I could have bought for myself.

Willow really looked at my face and some of the excitement faded from hers. “Lakelyn…”

“What?”

“Have you been crying?”