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My Mother-in-Law Turned Into a Child. So I Enrolled Her in Math Camp
Novelix
Completed
"My mother-in-law found a miracle cure that made her young again. She came back as a five-year-old with the same venomous attitude. She destroyed my company's confidential bid documents. She threw things at my housekeeper. She demanded I quit my executive job and stay home to raise her. My husband, a hopeless mama's boy, backed her every move. So I enrolled her in thirty back-to-back residential math programs. Wake-up at six. Wrong answers mean extra problems. One point short means one more day at school. She wanted a second childhood. I made sure she got one. Now she's learning addition. Her son is learning that stealing company funds has consequences. And I'm learning how good it feels to win."
Chapters (3)
第1章
My mother-in-law spent years chasing miracle cures. Somehow, she actually found one that made her young again, leaving her trapped in the body of a five-and-a-half-year-old.
My husband, a hopeless mama's boy, ordered me to quit my executive job and stay home full-time to "raise Mom."
She took full advantage of her new body. She trashed our house, then cut my company's confidential bid documents into confetti.
When I tried to stop her, she slapped me and planted both hands on her tiny hips.
"Don't you dare look at me like that. I've got more life experience in my little finger than you have in your whole body."
"I cleaned motel rooms on the night shift to put Grant through college. Now that I'm little again, you will kneel to put on my shoes every morning and feed me premium caviar. If you don't, I'll tell Grant what a heartless wife you are."
She threw herself onto the floor, kicking and screaming.
I did not get angry. I laughed.
She was right about one thing. Linda had suffered when she was young, and she had never even finished elementary school.
Now that she had been given a second childhood, how could I possibly let her waste it?
So I used her private annuity to enroll her in thirty back-to-back residential math programs at Hawthorne Learning Center, the strictest place I could find.
Wake-up was at six. Every wrong answer meant ten extra problems.
Linda, this time I promise you will get the head start you missed. One point short means one more day at school.
Linda Parker was picked up at 5:47 in the morning.
She had both arms locked around the doorframe, her legs clamped around the shoe cabinet, and the corner of my wedding portrait clenched between her teeth. Nothing could make her get in the van.
"Lena Shaw, if you send me to that place, I'll make Grant divorce you!"
I put her backpack in the van and checked the clock on the wall.
"Check-in is at six. If you're late, they add three worksheets to today's placement test."
"I'm not going! I'm too old for school!"
Her voice had the shrill pitch of a five-year-old, but every word still carried the same old venom.
Mrs. Collins, our housekeeper, stood by the living room door clutching a folder full of shredded paper.
"Ms. Shaw, the documents from last night..."
"Box them up," I said. "Don't throw away a single scrap. They go to corporate counsel."
Mrs. Collins looked from the scraps on the floor to Linda. "Even these?"
"She cut up confidential bid materials, not yesterday's newspaper."
Linda tore free of my hand, snatched a glass off the coffee table, and hurled it at Mrs. Collins.
Mrs. Collins jumped aside. The glass shattered against the wall, and a shard sliced through the top of her shoe.
"I'll throw another one if she keeps running her mouth!" Linda pointed at me. "Lena, get on your knees and apologize right now!"
I walked over, tucked her left hand into the side pocket of her backpack, and fastened the buckle.
"Today's first lesson is reading comprehension."
"Are you calling me stupid?"
"I didn't say that."
She kicked me in the shin. I did not move. I let the toe of her shoe connect, then tapped Record on my phone.
Mrs. Collins saw the screen light up and immediately understood.
"Did you record what she said?"
"I've been recording since she picked up the scissors."
Linda lunged for my phone. I held it out of reach.
"The security cameras are running too. Three broken glasses, six destroyed documents, and one assault on Mrs. Collins. When you grow up, it all goes on your tab."
"You think that stupid phone scares me?"
Her scream carried into the hall. Grant Parker came charging down the stairs, his pajama shirt only half buttoned.
"Lena, are you bullying Mom again?"
He scooped Linda up as if she were an injured child.
Linda wrapped her arms around his neck and instantly changed her tone.
"Grant, she won't let me have caviar. Now she's shipping me off to some prison school. She called me ignorant and useless."
Grant's expression hardened.
"Sending her to tutoring was bad enough. Now you're recording her? What exactly are you trying to do?"
"Teach her that rules apply to her."
"She's your mother-in-law!"
"Right now, she's a five-and-a-half-year-old student."
I pulled out the enrollment agreement and opened it to the authorized caregiver section.
"You signed as her authorized caregiver yesterday. The agreement clearly says she cannot withdraw during the first three months."
His finger froze on the page.
He had signed it himself. To explain Linda's sudden appearance, Grant had filed an emergency caregiver affidavit identifying her as a young relative living in our home. That way, he said, no one would ask why a fifty-seven-year-old woman had vanished and a little girl had taken her place.
I slipped the agreement back into my bag.
"Linda also authorized the tuition payments from her annuity account. If you want to pull her out, pay the early termination fee first."
Linda thrashed in his arms. "Grant, pay her! Take me home!"
Grant opened his banking app. The color drained from his face.
He did not have enough.
I finished the thought for him. "$165,000. If you can't produce it by this afternoon, she stays in class."
Grant stared at me.
"You planned this from the beginning, didn't you?"
"The only thing I calculated was how many problems she needs to solve each day."
The van door shut. Linda slapped the window and cursed at me as the driver pulled away.
I bent down and picked up a shard of glass. Half of a torn bid page was stuck to the back.
Only one line was still intact.
Southside redevelopment project. Final bid presentation: Executive conference room.
I folded the scrap and placed it in an evidence bag.
Grant thought the documents were gone.
He did not know I was waiting for him to reach into company funds to buy Linda's way out.
第2章
I returned to the office at nine.
Chloe at reception saw the handprint on my cheek, then the evidence bag in my hand.
"Ms. Shaw, Mr. Parker said you should report directly to the conference room on sixteen."
"Since when does he have the authority to summon me?"
Chloe lowered her voice. "He says you've been suspended as project lead."
I did not argue. I pressed the elevator button.
Grant sat at the head of the table in the small conference room on the sixteenth floor. My company badge and payment security token lay in front of him.
Daniel Brooks, our CFO, stood by the window. My assistant, Maya Reed, waited by the door with her laptop. HR director Karen Blake was reviewing a notice when I walked in. She pushed her glasses higher on her nose.
Grant slid the suspension notice toward me.
"Sign it. You're in no condition to keep running the Southside bid."
"What condition would that be?"
"Your mother-in-law hit you, and your answer was to send her to some abusive institution. This company doesn't need an executive who can't even manage her own household."
Maya spoke up. "Mr. Parker, this notice has neither the chairman's signature nor Compliance's approval."
Grant tossed my badge onto the floor.
"I run this office."
I bent down, picked it up, and brushed off the dust.
"The Southside project's core access is still assigned to me. Did you touch my account?"
"I submitted a freeze request."
"To whom?"
Grant did not answer.
Daniel set a printout on the table. "The system shows that the request came from Mr. Parker's own login. Victor Bennett has not approved it."
Karen looked up. "Under the bylaws, suspending a project lead requires a two-thirds board vote. This notice is invalid."
Grant spun toward her.
"Karen, you're taking her side too?"
"I'm following the bylaws."
His hand went still on the table.
Then he picked up his phone and played a video.
Linda sat in a classroom at Hawthorne with a stack of worksheets in front of her. She was sobbing and pounding the desk while an instructor told her to start over.
"Take a good look," Grant said, setting the phone in the middle of the table. "Lena locked a five-year-old in a boot camp and paid for it with money that belongs to the child. People online are already calling this child abuse."
I glanced at the timestamp in the corner.
6:12 that morning.
"Who did you give the internal security footage to?"
Grant's fingers tightened.
"The family has a right to expose abuse."
"The footage belongs to Hawthorne. You had no authorization to release it."
Maya checked her laptop. "I traced the first post. It came from a verified account registered to Mr. Parker's cousin."
Grant shot to his feet.
"Stop trying to bury me in technicalities. I will represent the company at tomorrow's bid presentation."
"No, you won't."
I placed a printed email on the table.
"Victor Bennett confirmed last night that I remain project lead. He left your system access intact because he wanted to see what else you might try."
Daniel turned to the last page and read the sender's name aloud.
"Victor Bennett, chair of the board."
Grant read the email twice. His fingers crumpled the edge.
His phone rang. The moment he answered, Linda's wail burst through the speaker.
"Grant! I missed eight questions today! They're making me work until tonight! Bring the money and get me out!"
"Mom, hang on a little longer."
"I can't! She's punishing me on purpose. Get the money now!"
Grant ended the call and glared at me.
"This isn't over."
"I've been counting on that."
He pulled the emergency payment token toward himself and stormed out.
Karen waited until the door closed.
"He just took the backup payment token."
I looked at Daniel. "How much can he approve with it?"
"Anything over $70,000 still requires my signature."
I folded Grant's fake suspension notice in half.
"Then preserve every request he submits."
Daniel nodded.
Maya frowned. "Why not remove him now?"
"Because he hasn't taken enough yet."
I looked at the photo of the payment token.
Linda wanted to come home. Grant needed money.
They would try every trick they had.
And I needed him to leave the complete trail in his own handwriting.
第3章
At four that afternoon, Grant made his move.
He did not come to my office. He had his secretary deliver a payment request instead.
It listed a $165,000 venue deposit for the Southside project.
The recipient was not one of our vendors. It was a company called Keystone Consulting.
Maya pulled the corporate filings and set them on my desk.
"Keystone's registered agent was Mr. Parker's college roommate. Its business address is a retail unit owned by Mr. Parker."
"Did Daniel sign?"
"He refused. Mr. Parker spent twenty minutes shouting in Accounting and claimed you had given verbal approval."
I studied the application.
The forged signature read Lena Shaw, but the capital S curved in the opposite direction from mine.
"Preserve the original and notify Internal Audit."
Maya opened a recording on her phone.
Grant's voice filled the room.
"My wife has been suspended, and the whole project is about to collapse. Daniel, if you don't sign, you'll be out the door with her."
Daniel answered, "Without the chairman's authorization, I will not release the funds."
Grant swore. A document slapped against a desk.
I sent the recording to the company's outside counsel, Michael Sullivan.
"The application and recording establish intent," he said over the phone. "Once the money actually leaves the company, the legal exposure changes."
"It will leave."
"You're sure?"
"He has to buy Linda's way out."
I ended the call and had Maya reject the request for the third time.
At seven, Grant called.
"Lena, why did you reject the venue deposit?"
"Wrong recipient."
"The vendor changed accounts. I negotiated it myself."
"Send me the contract."
Silence held for several seconds.
"You're no longer project lead. You don't have the authority to review it."
"Then let Bennett review it."
He gave a cold laugh.
"You think Bennett will protect you forever? If the Southside bid gets delayed, the company loses millions. Once I release that video of you abusing Mom, security won't even let you through the front door."
"Try it."
"Quit pretending you're calm. Mom shredded your files. What are you taking to tomorrow's presentation?"
I said nothing.
After he hung up, I opened my laptop and pulled up the cloud backup of the bid package.
Every version was intact.
I did not give Grant the backup or immediately forward it to Bennett. Under the bidding protocol, the project lead had to unlock the encrypted proposal in person fifteen minutes before the presentation.
Grant did not know that.
He also did not know that the pages Linda destroyed were never my only copy. They were printouts I had deliberately left in my home office.
At nine, Daniel sent me a message.
Mr. Parker bypassed secondary review. Funds transferred to Keystone Consulting.
The attachment was a transaction receipt. Grant's signature filled the approval box.
I forwarded it to Michael, then called Bennett.
"Call an emergency board meeting for ten tomorrow morning. Have Finance, Legal, and HR attend."
"What are you planning to do with Grant?"
"Let him finish saying everything he wants to say."
"And if he brings your mother-in-law to make a scene?"
"Even better."
I opened the recording from our home security system.
Linda sat on the couch while Grant knelt in front of her to put on her shoes. She ate caviar by the spoonful and berated him for being useless.
Then she looked directly at the camera.
"Lena, tomorrow I'm coming to your office to expose you. Everyone will know you locked your own mother-in-law up like a criminal!"
I paused the video.
She did not know that our cameras continuously uploaded sound and video to the cloud.
And she did not know that the sentence she was so eager for everyone to hear would open the first door for me.
