I Put My Late Mom’s Photo on My Wedding Table – My Stepmom ‘Accidentally’ Shoved it Off

Carol believed she had finally won when she destroyed my mother’s picture at my wedding reception. She smirked as she waited for me to lose it. However, she was unaware of what would enter through those double doors in precisely sixty seconds.

My mother passed away when I was 19, and I am currently 27 years old.

She was more than just my mom. She was my hero, my dearest friend, and the type of woman who could brighten whatever space she entered.

I was almost destroyed by losing her. I was in a haze for months, hardly eating and sleeping.

My dad was also grieving, but he dealt with it in a different way. He stayed busy and put himself into his work.

He then declared he was getting married again eleven months after we buried my mother.

I knew she was trouble from the first time I met her, and her name was Carol.

She was aloof toward me and would wince if my mother’s name was brought up. In private, she began referring to her as “the ghost” to my dad.

“Your father needs to move on,” she said me at our second meeting. “And so do you.”

She believed that “moving on” meant removing any traces of my mother’s presence.

Like a cyclone, Carol searched our home for items that belonged to Mom. Without consulting anyone, she boxed up all of her lovely handmade quilts and gave them to Goodwill. She even removed all of my mother’s pictures.

Carol just stared at me with those icy eyes when I told her and started crying.

She declared, “It’s time to grow up,”

“She’s no longer there. Take care of it.

“This is my house now.”

To be honest, I did everything I could to try to reconcile with her. I made an effort to control my temper and get along with Dad.

However, Carol simply made it impossible.

Every meal became a battleground for her, and every holiday became a contest in which she had to outdo my mother’s memories.

I made low contact as a result.

I obtained my own place, moved out, and only returned when it was absolutely necessary. However, I never forgot her treatment of me. She attempted to eliminate the most significant person in my life, and I will never forget it.

I promised myself when Brandon, my four-year boyfriend, proposed to me last year.

Whether Carol liked it or not, my mom was going to be a part of my wedding.

I placed my favorite picture of my mother within the most exquisite silver frame I could find. It showed Mom beaming with pride as she laughed at my high school graduation. Next to my head table seat, I put it with a little inscription that said, “Forever guiding me.”

Carol walked the site like she owned it on the day of my wedding.

Even though she had only been in my life for eight years, she made sure that everyone knew she was the bride’s mother. She made everything about herself, posed for pictures, and made toasts that she wasn’t asked to make.

Her entire attitude, however, shifted when she saw the picture of my mother seated at the head table.

Her eyes darkened and her phony grin disappeared.

With an obnoxious grin, she strode straight to the table, grabbed my mother’s picture as if it were trash, and pushed it off the edge.

The floor was covered in broken glass.

She then bent down near my ear.

“Stop dragging her into everything,” she snarled. “She’s passed away. I am now the family’s woman.

She stood up straight and appeared really proud of herself, as though this were her greatest achievement. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she intended to break me on my special day.

I knew she would do something like this, you see. Carol was powerless to stop herself. Even on the day of my wedding, she had to make everything about herself.

The problem with knowing someone’s genuine nature, however, is this. You can get ready for it.

I carefully got to my feet, inhaled deeply, and looked at my watch.

I thought it was perfect timing.

The venue’s double doors flew open with a thunderous bang precisely sixty seconds later.

Everyone in the room looked around. Everyone fell silent, including Carol.

A dark-suit-clad man carrying a leather briefcase entered. He did not attend the wedding. He looked around the room as if he was trying to find a certain person.

Then he looked straight at Carol.

He said, “Mrs. Carol,” in a firm, businesslike tone. “We need to speak with you.”

Two police policemen in uniform entered the doorway behind him.

“What is this?” Carol inquired. “What’s going on here?”

The investigator approached our table.

His words, “This won’t take long, ma’am,” “You are under investigation for identity theft and financial fraud. We have solid proof that you have been moving money from your husband’s business account to a personal account that is solely in your name.

My father’s jaw dropped. It appeared as though he had just been hit in the stomach.

The detective went on to say, “We’ve been tracking these transactions for several months.” “Several pricey trips and hotel stays with a person named Chad seem to have been scheduled using the pilfered money. Your husband wouldn’t be like that, would he?

Carol’s gaze widened.

She stammered, “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” “This must be a miscommunication. I mean…I—”

“We also have photos,” an officer said. Many of them. from what you believed to be private social media profiles.

Then Carol, like a stranded animal, gazed about frantically. Her expression abruptly shifted from fright to wrath as her gaze fell on me.

She gestured directly at my face with a trembling finger.

“She set me up!” Carol let out a scream. “This is a psychotic grudge! For years, she has been scheming against me.

I grinned.

“No, Carol,” I made sure everyone could hear. “This is just consequences.”

My dad requested me to assist him in organizing some papers for his little accounting business around six months ago, and that’s when I really started to notice strange things.

I looked over them, but the figures didn’t add up. I was unable to explain the transfers on my bank statements. Carol’s “work trips” occurred every several weeks, which I thought was strange, but she never discussed them.

Although I knew Dad would discuss it with Carol, I could have told him about it. I knew that in order to convince him that everything was fine, she would lie.

That’s what any intelligent woman would do. I engaged a private detective.

He had to spend two weeks tracking down the money trail and three weeks obtaining pictures of Carol and Chad together in Miami.

He collected enough evidence to support charges a month later.

I could have turned her in right away once I had all the necessary evidence.

I chose to wait instead because I wanted everyone to see her true self. In front of our entire family and circle of acquaintances, I wanted her mask to come off.

You know, only I realized how nasty she was, even though she acted like this kind person in front of everyone else. I now sought to sabotage the false self-image Carol had created.

She had lost her game.

The officers approached her while wearing handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent,” one of them said.

As they escorted Carol to the door, she began to scream.

She shouted at my father, “You knew she hated me!” instead. “You allowed her to harm me like way! You were aware.”

My father didn’t respond. He sat there looking bewildered and broken..

.

Then he cautiously reached down and picked up the broken picture frame that belonged to my mother. Carefully brushing away the glass fragments, he placed the frame back on the table where it belonged.

He said to me in a whisper, “She would have been so proud of you,” “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you tried to tell me something was wrong.”

For me, that moment was more significant than ever catching Carol.

Carol was still yelling about how unjust everything was until the police car drove off.

The wedding guests, bursting with excitement over what they had just seen, gradually resumed talking once Carol left the area.

Brandon gave my hand a squeeze.

The “best wedding ever,” he said.

“Totally,” I chuckled.

Carol is presently incarcerated pending trial.

She had been stealing money for over three years, it turned out. The pictures of Chad on vacation went back even further.

I did, in fact, get married. I did, in fact, kill a snake in the process.

Although it wasn’t the wedding I had envisioned, it was just what I needed.

For the remainder of the evening, my mother’s picture remained on that table, exactly where it should have been.