Chapter 6
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With her help, I managed to contact Gabby King, the lawyer of the National Academy of Elder Law Association.
She was a middle-aged woman in her early forties. Her eyes looked sharp, and she sounded professional.
After she heard me talking about the whole incident, she remained quiet for a while.
“Eleanor, I have worked on many cases like this. The most important thing is evidence.”
I smiled bitterly.
“Evidence?
“What about my bookkeeping? And those bank transaction details…”
Gabby nodded and said, “Of course, this is useful evidence, but it’s not enough.
“We need evidence to prove that what they said in the livestream isn’t true, then we can sue them for defamation.
“At the same time, we need to prove that they relied on you financially all this while, while at the same time emotionally neglecting you.”
She accompanied me home.
I took out a rusted metal box from the bottom of my suitcase.
Firstly, I took out a copy of a real estate purchase agreement. There was a debt note folded between the pages.
Ten years ago, when Lydia and Ben got married, they said they wanted to buy a house in the city.
I took out the life savings that I had built with my husband and bought the house for them.
Lydia had personally prepared the document.
I pointed at the signatures.
“They said they’d slowly pay me back.
“But ten years have passed, and they did not even pay me a single cent.”
I took out my phone and flipped through my bank transactions.
Records dating six years back showed a large sum of money being transferred out from my bank account on an almost monthly basis.
Cumulatively, it was close to three-hundred-thousand dollars.
Gabby took photos of all these as evidence.
I thought for a while, then pulled out a few photobooks from the box.
The first book contained all of Lydia’s photos since she was a kid.
The first time she walked, I had bent down to support her.
When she got into university, the three of us took a photo together in front of the university gate.
On the day she got married, I was helping her to tidy her veil.
The next photobook contained photos of my late husband and me.
I calmly said with a shaking voice, “When my late husband was ill, Lydia only visited him three times.
“She kept saying that she was busy with work. Ben only visited once.
“I took care of him for two years until he passed.”
Gabby patted my hand lightly to comfort me.
“Eleanor, these would be enough. Next, we have to do three things.
“Firstly, we have to report to the social media platform about the fraudulent and frivolous video. Secondly, we have to come out with a statement to clear your name. Thirdly, if we need to, we have to sue them.”
Two days later, an essay titled ‘The Truth: A Mother’s Ten-Year Dedication And The Betrayal She Suffered.’ was published on many social media platforms.
The articles contained the debt note, transaction details, photos of the raffle box, screenshots from social media, as well as evidence of me taking care of my ill husband.
Gabby also helped me record a video.
Before the camera, I calmly recited what had happened over the past ten years.
I explained how I gave everything to support my daughter’s family, how I was alienated from their family, and how I discovered the rigged raffle box on New Year’s Eve.
At the very end of the video, I said, “I don’t want sympathy, I just want the truth to be revealed.
“A parent’s love is not an endless ATM. A child shouldn’t think of his or her parents only when money is involved.”
