But her plan hit a wall in the third week after she had invested everything. That week's interest did not arrive in her account as scheduled.
When she questioned Mr. Lewis, he replied, "The accountants are doing the year-end closing this week, so we can't process payments. We'll pay you a double installment next week."
Laoise waited, reassured.
But when the next payday arrived, the money was still missing. She asked Mr. Lewis again. He told her, "The audit isn't finished yet since it's the end of the month. Once it's done, we'll pay you for all three weeks at once."
Laoise waited patiently once more. From the middle of the month to the end, and then into the beginning of a new one. She thought that surely by now, the accounting issues would be resolved and the accumulated interest would finally hit her account. But on that payday, she refreshed her balance all day long, and not a single cent appeared.
Unease began to take hold. She reached out to Mr. Lewis again, but there was no reply for hours. Panicked, she tried calling him, only to be met with an automated voice informing her that the number was no longer in service.
Her vague unease shifted into total, blinding horror. She rushed into the group chat to ask if everyone else was still receiving their profits. The group that usually radiated warmth and trust was now met with dead silence. No one replied.
Laoise sat by the window in the fading twilight, watching black clouds roll across the horizon as day turned to gloom and lightning flickered in the distance. She felt as though a storm were raging inside her own head, as if she had been struck by a bolt of lightning. She sat there in a daze, letting the torrential rain from the open window soak her through.
She thought, what am I going to do. That was all my money.
Fifteen minutes later, Laoise made her decision. Ignoring Jessica's screams—"You stupid girl, did you go brain dead the moment you got divorced. Close the window, you're letting the rain in."—and despite the thunder and the downpour, she ran to the police station to report the crime.
When the officer heard her story, his face was a mixture of frustration and sympathy.
"We never stop campaigning against fraud," he said. "We do everything we can to get people to download anti-fraud apps precisely to prevent cases like yours. You've been scammed. That group you joined? You were the only real person in it. The rest were all scammers, Mr. Lewis's accomplices, working together to play their parts and trap you. Why didn't you report this sooner? You waited weeks. They've likely fled the country by now to avoid capture. Tracking them down will be incredibly difficult."
Laoise sat there, drenched and hollow, her mind a complete blank.
Between the drenching rain and the shock of being scammed, Laoise developed a high fever the moment she got home. Once the truth came out, Jessica berated her from her sickbed without mercy.
Beating her chest and stomping her feet in rage, Jessica shoved medicine at Laoise while cursing her for being blind and heartless. She screamed that Laoise would rather give her money to some lowlife stranger than buy a house for her own flesh and blood. At the height of her fury, she almost swallowed the pills herself, not wanting Laoise to have them.
Burning with fever, Laoise felt a profound sense of despair. Her marriage was gone, her money was gone, her health had failed, and now even her own family was turning on her. She just wanted peace. But Jessica wouldn't give it to her. She kept demanding money, and when she received no answer, she took advantage of Laoise's delirious state to ransack her belongings.
By the time she was done, Jessica had stolen every card, savings book, and bit of cash Laoise had—totaling nearly a hundred thousand dollars. That was the money Laoise had kept for her survival. Now, she was truly destitute.
Once Jessica had secured the money, her vitriol subsided, finally giving Laoise some space to recover. When the fever finally broke, and Laoise looked in the mirror, she barely recognized herself. The illness had left her skeletal and gaunt, and the light had completely vanished from her eyes. She felt like a walking ghost.
Recently, her second sister, Emily Douglas, had also returned home. Emily was fierce and had no interest in school. She had never gone to college, choosing instead to work after high school. Later, after Laoise got married, Emily used a subsidy from Laoise and Percy to buy a storefront in the county center and open a small shop, which turned a decent profit. Because of her business, she rarely had time to visit their parents in the countryside unless there was something specific to handle.
From Emily's conversations with their parents, Laoise learned that while she was sick, Jessica had taken her money, along with a hundred thousand dollars each from the two older sisters, to make a down payment on a house for Fergal in the county center.
"Originally, Mom was going to have Percy help buy a house for Fergal near your old place," Emily said to Laoise. "But who knew you and Percy would pick that moment to divorce. Now, the money you can cough up isn't much more than what our eldest sister or I gave. Mom thought that if she waited any longer, she wouldn't even be able to pull together the three hundred thousand. If Fergal can't make it in the big city, he can at least live in the county center. So, Mom went ahead and paid the deposit."
Laoise listened to her sister and gave a small, hollow grunt of agreement.
Seeing her looking more dead than alive, Emily gave her a shove. "Don't just grunt at me. Did you even understand a word I said?"
Laoise rubbed her shoulder where Emily had pushed her, feeling as though her entire body was about to fall apart. She looked up and asked, "What do you mean?"
Emily couldn't help but shove her again. "I mean that from now on, none of us is getting out of Fergal's mortgage. We're all going to have to help him pay it off. So, moping around Mom's house isn't going to cut it. You need to get out there and start earning money immediately."
Laoise was stunned. Her life had become a blur of confusion. She was like a bird without feet, with nowhere to land, yet somehow she had blindly blundered into carrying the weight of Fergal's mortgage on her back.