My father, Richard Sterling, was a man of vast wealth and zero presence. He was a single dad; my mother, Eleanor, had been battling a long illness. But even before she was sick, my life was defined by the size of the checks he sent and the length of his global business trips. I resented him fiercely because, in the time Mom needed him most, he was always absent.

When Mom was hospitalized, he simply increased the wire transfer amount to cover the bills, never once hurrying back to hold her hand.

I was sixteen, and I quit school immediately, dropping out of my advanced classes to be by her side. I called him every day, using Mom’s phone, pleading for him to cut short his trip—just for a few days, just for her.

The doctors discharged Mom, telling me she needed someone constantly present. Her sickness was tied to severe asthma; any crisis required immediate attention and a precisely timed dose from her emergency inhaler. The part-time cleaner only came twice a week. It was just Mom and me, alone in that cold, silent mansion.

Back home, Mom insisted I return to school.

“It’s been a week, Chloe,” she whispered, her voice frail. “Your father promised he’d be home tomorrow, very early. He assured me he’d take care of everything.”

I tried to argue. “But Dad always promises. He told me three times he’d come to watch my ballet performances, and he never even came late. He just sends an apology text claiming an ‘urgent merger.’”

Mom, bless her trusting heart, was too worried about my future to dwell on Richard’s failings. “Please, just leave the inhaler close to me. Your father will be here in no time. If you miss school, I will worry, and the doctor said I must not worry.”

To appease her, I gave in. At least Richard’s promise was solid—he sounded unusually firm this time.

I went to school and was immediately sent to the principal’s office for my long, undocumented absence. I was furious. Mom had specifically asked Richard to call the school and explain, and he had assured her he would handle it immediately. He never did.

The fury mixed with a gnawing worry: Did he even care?

After school, I rushed home. Richard’s sleek black SUV wasn’t in the circular driveway. My stomach twisted.

I ran to my mother’s room.

I found her lying still. Her arm was stretched out, her fingers just inches from the life-saving inhaler resting on the bedside table. She must have fallen into a respiratory crisis while sleeping, struggling to reach the medicine as she shifted behind the large bed.

Mom never woke up.

Richard finally returned the next day, hours after Mom’s relatives had arrived and her body had been taken to the funeral home. He looked jet-lagged, not remorseful.

While still reeling from shock and consumed by grief, I retreated to the library, unable to face the silence of the house. From the adjacent hallway, I heard Richard’s voice on the phone—low, tense, but undeniably clear.

“I pleaded with you when you met me at the airport that my wife was sick,” he was saying to someone. “I promised to be home in the morning, but you insisted I had to spend the night with you first. You are my sweetheart, Tiffany, but she was still my wife. Now that she’s gone, are you happy?”

The woman’s voice on the other end was sickeningly calm. “I didn’t wish her bad, Richard, but it’s not our fault we love each other. She was asthmatic. If God decided it was time for her to go, it’s His will. We can be together soon, honey. Free.”

He was talking to his mistress—the reason he missed my mother’s death—as her body lay in the morgue. And he knew I was in the house.

The hypocrisy was a physical blow.

During the funeral service, there she was: Tiffany. Perfectly coiffed, dressed in expensive black, holding my father’s hand as if she were the grieving widow. They were glued to each other. I wanted to create a scene, to scream the truth, but I held it in, saving my energy for survival.

A week after the burial, Tiffany visited. Then she moved in. She spent the next three days—and nights—sleeping in my mother’s bedroom. The transition was jarring, disrespectful, and fast.

I detested her. I made my feelings perfectly clear through my silence, my locked door, and my refusal to acknowledge her existence.

A few days later, Richard introduced her at dinner as my future stepmother.

“I can never accept her as my stepmom,” I told him, looking him straight in the eye.

He sighed, treating my profound grief like a minor scheduling conflict. “You’ll come around, Chloe. She’s not going anywhere.”

Tiffany, now officially living in the house, quickly made her intentions known. I heard her on the phone one afternoon, talking to a friend in the kitchen.

“Honestly, Brenda, if she doesn’t accept me, I will make sure Richard—my sweetheart—focuses solely on me. You know he always listens to me.” Tiffany’s voice dropped conspiratorially. “I will convince him to send her away to that military academy in Arizona and buy a puppy-dog instead. I prefer a puppy to that moody teenager. Dogs are loyal, you know. She might just betray me.”

I stood frozen in the dining room, listening to the casual cruelty.

She wants him to ship me off? To replace me with a pet? I thought, my mind struggling to grasp the depth of the betrayal. Where would he send me?

My father had already sold me—not for money, but for the convenience of an affair and the comfort of a life without messy emotional obligations. And his reward for his emotional transaction? A designer dog to replace his daughter.