What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be your mother, but I will not be your unpaid servant.
I’ll love my grandchildren, but visits will be invitations, not demands.
And none of you will ever call my life selfish again.”
Michael nodded.
“That’s fair.”
“No,” I said.
“It’s more than fair.
It’s overdue.”
Three months later, I sat in a Sydney courtroom while Richard stood before the judge.
He had returned the trust funds that remained, sold his investment property to cover the missing amount, and pleaded guilty to fraud and falsifying financial documents.
The judge looked directly at him.
“You exploited both trust and family access.
Restitution does not erase that.”
Richard was ordered to repay every dollar, complete eighteen months of supervised correction in the community, perform three hundred hours of service, and surrender financial control of the family company.
A five-year protective order barred him from managing
