When Janet Kavaná's husband deprived her and their three young children of a home and food, the woman had only one place to go: her mother's former country house. But when she got there, something surprising from the past awaited her… The car rocked with each sharp turn in the dirt road. The Kavaná family had traveled to a small country town during the summer.
There wasn't much in the way of urban infrastructure, but the scenery was stunning. Along the route, there were many lakes and other lush vegetation. Janet knew the place well and was surprised to find that the roads had changed little over the years.
Her three kids were sleeping in the backseat and weren't particularly interested in what was happening outside the window. They were all exhausted from the trip and everything they had been through over the past few months. Janet drove the rental car while fighting back the tears.
It had been months since the woman had been able to keep her head straight without the help of medication. She only prayed to God that her children would not notice her desperation. .
Then Janet pulled into a driveway. "Here we go, Rick, Nate, and Milla! " This is it”, the mother announced, recapturing their attention.
Right in front of them was an old, seemingly deserted house. It was obvious that nature was in charge of beautifying the area because wildflowers were growing everywhere, and the weeds were a little high. Rick said, "Mom, it looks like a house from a horror movie”.
Taking a step back, Milla reacted, "Oh, that's scary! " Janet knew that the kids wouldn't be interested in the location right away, but she hoped that they would see how important it was. “It's only temporary, right?
We’ll figure it out," the mother said as she prepared to close the car, pick up her bags, and walk to the door. Even though they were scared, the kids went ahead and ran around. Janet was counting on her children's curiosity and the chance to go on adventures to keep them busy after all the terrible things they had been through.
Janet saw the old mailbox on the property once she got over the old fence. The sight of it brought back many good and surprising memories from her childhood. Rick, the oldest son, was checking out the house, which looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.
Nate and the youngest, Milla, were looking for bugs and picking flowers. Nate yelled, "There's a bee! " Milla said, "There's another one right here, too.
" Nate and Milla looked dazzled, and that gave faith to Janet's plans. She thought, "If Matthew hadn't been so careless, we wouldn't be out here in the middle of nowhere and broke, but that's life. " She kept her head up and accepted the burden she was carrying because she knew the breakup was necessary and best for the kids.
Ten years of marriage had been very intense. . When Janet first met Matthew, she was 23.
He was a highly ethical and prosperous businessman. If necessary, he stayed late at work or used part of the weekend to catch up on spreadsheets and payments. Even so, he would always sit next to her in the evening, crack open a beer or a whiskey, and unwind after a day of stress at the office.
It gave her security, it seemed that Matthew managed to balance his life. . Their dating lasted two years, and she was also able to establish herself professionally.
They were not rich or millionaires but had an enviable income in their circle of friends and family. When everything appeared stable, they decided to marry. After the party, Matthew honored a promise he had made to the company's employees: they would each receive a liter of whiskey as a memento.
It was the groom's favorite drink and a sign of the success of his business. This wastefulness started to attract people with a lot of power, but these people had habits that would hurt Matthew. He was already gambling and placing small bets in casinos before the birth of their first child, Rick.
When he lost, he was frustrated, but he always claimed that the amount was insignificant. And when he won, which wasn't often, he told his family and coworkers that he could predict what would happen. By the time his youngest child, Milla, was born, he was already a high roller.
Janet became concerned because he was risking substantial sums of money. She sometimes quarreled with her husband about this, but he said the family's finances were fine because he knew what he was doing and was a responsible man. Janet was afraid, but it didn't take away Matthew's reason.
After all, there was never anything missing for the children and the couple at home. Also, he continued to wake up early every day and work hard at work. “Betting is my hobby, entertainment for me to relax, my dear,” he would say.
“I may lose a few bucks, but when I get it right, it will be good for everyone! ”. The fact is, if he had known that such a habit would destroy his family, perhaps he would have listened to his wife.
. . Janet's mother, Phyllis, knew about Matthew's bets and didn't think it could end well.
She couldn’t fully express her misgivings because, of course, the money was her son-in-law's, but she feared that a disaster was likely and it would impact both her daughter and her grandchildren. “What are you going to do if one day he loses everything, my daughter? Are you going to support him with our family money?
” she once asked Janet. “He will not lose everything. The gambling money is not the money that keeps this family going, Mom,” she replied.
Phyllis said that she prayed she was right. During one of his gambling binges, Matthew put down a lot of money and won a jackpot. He took his whole family to Disney with the prize money to show everyone that this was just a hobby and that he had everything under control.
They were four enchanted days for Janet, Rick, Nate and Milla, who were still very young. Janet thought that if her husband gave them a surprise like that, it must be true that their business and personal money were safe. The problem was that after Matthew won the jackpot, he felt even more sure of himself and began to bet more and more.
To his gamblers’ logic, this made sense; the more money he put at risk, the larger the reward would be. Except that Matthew never won again. .
On the contrary, he lost several times in a row, always thinking he would win the next time. His losses got so bad that he had to borrow a lot of money from his business. He had to fire eight high-level employees at once and announce an emergency "restructuring" to avoid publicly admitting that his gambling addiction had caused him to bet money he didn't have.
Mathew had to sell his whole share of the business to his partner so that he could pay his bills at home. He was no longer an owner of the business. After that, he was out on the street!
This was a huge blow to both his sense of self-worth and his family's life. Janet was in a lot of pain. What would they eat?
How would they live? How would they pay for their three kids to keep going to school? But the worst was yet to come: a loan shark started calling the family's house to collect on the loans the man had taken out.
When Janet went to the grocery store to buy the rest of the month's food, she found that the family's credit cards had been blocked. When she called the bank, the manager told her that her husband had spent the couple's money. He had also taken out loans from the bank over the past few months, and the shortfall was so big that a bailiff would soon be at the family's door if the debt weren't paid.
In other words, what the family owed the bank was close to the value of the house they lived in, so the bank would sell the house to pay off the debt. When Janet heard that, she felt stunned, as if the world had stopped around her. She couldn't figure out how her husband could be so careless and self-centered while secretly racking up debts.
When she found her husband later, she went from being tired and bored to being furious and out of control. "Do you realize how bad what you've done is? Mathew, your hobby cost our family a lot of money.
We'll be kicked out of our house with three kids to feed, and it's all because of a stupid game! ” She was so nervous that she fought with her husband while on medicine to calm her down. Matthew insisted he was simply experiencing a lot of bad luck, but that was about to change.
Janet could not believe her ears. "What? Are you thinking about playing again?
IT IS OVER! Do you understand that if you don't promise me that right away, I'll take the kids and leave ". Matthew bowed his head in recognition that Janet was being serious.
He remained silent for a while before promising to change, but he begged his wife to stand by him and not leave. She wanted to sell it before it was auctioned. That way, she would get a better value on it, making it possible to fully settle the debt with the bank, but only part of what her husband owed the loan shark, who was calling members of the family everyday.
. Where are we going to live now? she wondered as she looked around the rooms and thought about the childen.
Janet took a deep breath and explained what had happened to her mother. . She was mortified and wanted to disappear from the face of the Earth.
She never imagined it would get this low. She asked to access family money to pay the loan shark. The elderly woman looked coldly at her daughter and asked: “Are you sure about this, my daughter?
If I give you that money, I will have nothing left for your future and that of my grandchildren, apart from our old house in the countryside, with that mailbox that you loved, remember? ”. Janet always wanted to be the first one to open it and bring the mail running home when she was a kid.
Her mother would sometimes put candy in the box just so Janet could discover a surprise inside. But now was not the time to reflect on the past; Janet needed to think about her family's future, so she confirmed her intention to use family funds to assist her husband. After all, he was a member of her family as well.
Phyllis was upset, so she thought about her three grandchildren before agreeing to give away all of the money she had saved over her life. Matthew would have been in trouble with the loan shark, and his grandchildren would have been homeless if it hadn't been for her. Phyllis' final act of kindness before passing away was the transfer.
She fell ill unexpectedly forty days later and had to be taken to the hospital right away. Janet was devastated by her death in the ICU. After the funeral, she sobbed for many hours.
Even her children couldn't make her feel better. . Janet received a letter from her mother, via the family attorney, a week later.
He clarified that the letter contained the remainder of her mother’s belongings. Janet wasn't sure what this meant. When Janet opened the envelope, she discovered a handwritten note on a plain piece of plain paper.
Her mother wished her the best and told her that she could always seek refuge in the rural home where she had grown up. "May you only receive letters of happiness", she finished the text. The key to the place was in the envelope.
Matthew stopped playing. He lost friends and most of his family viewed him with some contempt. He, Janet and the three children had to leave the beautiful house they owned to live on rent in a tiny apartment.
Without their previous income, the three children had to drop out of private school, but no public school could accept them in the middle of the school year. So the kids would stay all day in the apartment, bored and picking fights with each other. From that moment on, Janet would look at her husband more harshly.
. He needed to be better for his family and find a way to regain his dignity, but the truth was that Matthew was depressed after all he had done, and this moved him to rediscover an old best friend: whiskey. He still got up early every day and went to the street to look for work or odd jobs.
His ex-partner was a good man who understood that everyone makes mistakes. He told Matthew that if he could show that he had changed for the better, he could work for the company again, not as a partner, but as a senior employee. Matthew knew that business better than anyone else.
. This gave Janet hope, but the first thing Matthew did when he got home was to look for a bottle. On days when nothing was going on, he would get drunk and fall asleep on the couch.
But he was quickly getting lost. When his ex-partner planned a birthday party for his son, who was the same age as Nate, Janet saw this as an opportunity for her husband to show that he was ready. While the kids played in the garden, the adults were having lively conversations.
Mathew's former employees at the company and the situation was a little embarrassing for him. Matthew drank more than he should have. The more drunk he got, the more unpleasant he was with the other children's parents and with his own wife.
When all around could see that he was already past his limit, Janet tried to convince him to withdraw before he ruined his last chance with his ex-partner. "Honey, let's go home. You need a shower and a good night's sleep.
Come on, I'll help you, "But he told Janet to shut up and said he wouldn't do what she wanted, which got everyone's attention. "But he told Janet to shut up and said he wasn't going to do what she wanted, drawing everyone's attention. “You think just because you helped me once you're going to boss me around now?
Remember I'm the one who supported you until yesterday, you ingrate", he said for everyone to hear. "he said so everyone could hear. She felt humiliated and didn't know where to look.
The guests were uncomfortable, and Mathew's ex-partner looked sad and disappointed in him. That was the biggest embarrassment of Janet's life. .
She was devastated. Back in the small apartment where they lived, she tried to go over her whole life in her head and understand how she had let it get this far. Sad and angry, she found no other way out but to separate from her husband.
Mathew was sinking his life in the mud, and the three children did not deserve to sink along with him. When the divorce papers arrived, it was as if Mathew had already been waiting for them. Quite unceremoniously, he signed the paperwork as if he was the victim escaping from a problematic marriage.
. All that was left for Janet to do was to take the children and go inland to her family's old house, and there she would think about how to lead the rest of her life. She was broken and didn't even know if the electricity was still on in the house, but she had no other way out.
She told her children that this was a temporary move, like a summer vacation, but she had no plan B in mind. Apart from the house, Janet had nothing. Her bank account was almost drained.
What little she had in the bank would only help her live for a few months. She would have to find a new job and hope for the best. Janet walked in through the front door, which creaked open, sending a chill through Rick.
“This house looks haunted,” said the boy. The place was very dark and Milla didn't want to go in at all. Janet still remembered how certain things worked there and tried to go to the wide window in the room.
It was a little stuck, but as soon as she managed to open it, a very strong beam of light entered the house and bathed everything in a golden glow, making the children's mother dive into nostalgia. . The room was filled with the sound of breaking glass.
"I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't mean to! " exclaimed Milla from the living room. Janet and the boys went to see what had happened.
A large framed glass painting on the floor in the living room had shattered. "Look, there's a small door in that wall," said the youngest. Janet nearly fell to her knees on the floor when she realized what it was.
"It's not a small door, silly. "That's a safe right there," Rick, the oldest, said. Janet realized why that old painting had always been in the same spot: it concealed a safe!
Janet tried every possible way to open the door but realized that a specific key was needed. What happened to the key to the safe? She was looking out the window when her gaze was drawn to the old mailbox at the front door, which reminded her of the last conversation she had with her mother, during which the old woman mentioned the mailbox in a curious way.
"But is it possible? " she wondered. Janet went to the front of the old house and checked the mailbox, where she had found sweets hidden by her mother on several occasions.
When she opened it, she discovered one more surprise was waiting for her. A key that was as old as the house and much heavier than it appeared. She dashed back into the room and inserted the key into the lock.
She heard a sharp click as she twisted it, and the vault door opened. Janet thought she would find old family photos, letters between her parents, and maybe some old family records. Instead, she found something that left her speechless.
There were silver earrings, a large, heavy gold pendant, and several gold rings and necklaces inside a case. When Janet opened the pendant, she discovered a picture of herself as a baby on one side and the words "For Janet, forever my most precious treasure" on the other. As she read it, she had the impression that her mother was speaking to her right next to her in the old house.
Janet held the diamond-studded pendant close to her heart and began to cry. She was too emotional about what it evoked in her and what it meant in her life at that moment. She started sobbing.
“What is it, Mom? Is everything all right? " Milla asked.
She turned and opened her arms to her children, inviting them all to hug her. "It's better than ever, my daughter. I just realized how grandma always loved us.
". The next day Janet took all Miss Phyllis's old and valuable jewels out of the safe and went to estimate how much they were worth, arriving at a number in excess of four hundred thousand dollars. That meant she was safe and wouldn't need her ex-husband ever again.
She looked out the window and saw Rick, Nate and Milla playing among the wildflowers. The sun was setting and now everyone had reason to smile. If you liked the story, please leave a thumbs up, and this other video on the screen now will probably move you as well.
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