The locksmith was still packing his tools when my mother told my rain-soaked daughter we didn’t live there anymore.
I’m Allison Davis, 38, and this is the story of how my own mother tried to steal my inheritance: a Victorian mansion in Beacon Hill worth over $4 million and a legacy she felt I was too “pathetic” to manage.
For five hours, my 11-year-old daughter, Emma, waited in the freezing rain while my mother and sister celebrated inside, thinking they had finally gotten rid of the family disappointment. They changed the locks, forged documents, and told the neighbors I was destitute.
But they didn’t know that my grandfather, a man who built his fortune from nothing, had prepared for exactly this moment.
Part 1: The Family Scorecard
Our family home sat on two acres in Beacon Hill, Boston—a six-bedroom Victorian that my grandfather, William Davis, had bought in 1975 for what he called “pocket change.” He made his fortune in commercial real estate, turning abandoned warehouses into luxury lofts before gentrification was even a word. By the time he retired, his portfolio was worth $30 million.
But if you asked him about his greatest investment, he’d point to the small study where he taught me chess when I was seven, and where he helped Emma with her homework every evening for the past 11 years.
I’d moved back home after my divorce when Emma was just six months old. My ex-husband, a banker who’d promised partnership and…
