My Father’s Final Act Looked Cruel… Until I Discovered the Shocking Truth About My Stepmother (3 of 3)

Until a month later, I ran into one of Dad’s old friends at the grocery store. Casually, he said, “You know, your father bought a house a few months before he died. Put it under my name. Transferred it entirely to Linda.”

I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, everything made sense. Dad hadn’t expelled her out of spite. He had done it to shield her—from my brothers, from us. He knew they would never accept her, and once he was gone, they’d push her aside without mercy. So he gave her something no one could touch: a home of her own.

When I visited her, Linda opened the door with the same warm smile I remembered from childhood. The house was modest but full of peace. And in that moment, I understood: my father’s harshness had been an act of love.

He wasn’t protecting us from her. He was protecting her from us.