My Mother-in-Law Served My Nephew $150 Wagyu and My Triplet Girls $4 Noodles—Then My Brother-in-Law Found Her Secret Plan

PART ONE — THE PLACE CARDS
The paper beneath the serving platter was an agenda.
Not a recipe, not a seating chart, and not an innocent reminder about dessert.
At the top, in Evelyn's familiar neat handwriting, it read: MERCER FAMILY LEGACY — NEXT GENERATION DISTRIBUTION.
Below that was a list of names, each paired with a percentage.
Miles had a line of his own.
Our three daughters appeared together on one line marked “symbolic gifts only.”
Caleb held the paper by its edges as though it might stain his fingers.
“What is this?” he asked.
Evelyn reached across the table.
“Give me that. We are not discussing finances in front of children.”
“You put the word legacy on a sign beside a child's dinner,” Caleb answered.
“Apparently you were discussing finances before we arrived.”
Walter finally lifted his eyes from the glass.
“Evelyn,” he said, “I thought we agreed there would be no paperwork tonight.”
The tone in his voice made my stomach tighten.
Owen looked at his father.
“Agreed about what?”
Walter rubbed his forehead.
“Your mother wanted to talk about the family foundation.”
“It's not a foundation,” Evelyn snapped.
“It's a plan for protecting what we've built.”
I watched Ivy trace a fingertip around the rim of her untouched bowl.
The adults were beginning to sound like a courtroom, and I refused to make my daughters sit through the proceedings.
“Girls, please take your jackets,” I said.
Hazel looked up.
“Are we leaving because of the noodles?”
“We're leaving because dinner should never make you wonder whether you belong.”
Wren carefully folded her paper napkin into a triangle.
“Can Miles come too?” she asked.
Rachel answered before anyone else.
“Of course he can.”
Miles pushed his plate away.
“I don't want special steak,” he said.
“I want the same food as my cousins.”
Evelyn looked genuinely astonished, as if she had planned a coronation and the prince had declined the crown.
“Sweetheart, this is about honoring you.”
Miles frowned.
“But it makes them sad.”
Those six words carried more decency than anything the adults had said for the past twenty minutes.
Caleb moved his chair back.
“Rachel, take the kids out to the patio. I'll be right there.”
Rachel glanced at me, and we gathered four jackets and three little purses.
As we crossed the dining room, Evelyn called after us.
“Don't make a spectacle of this, Natalie.”
I turned around.
“You made the spectacle when you printed the sign.”
Outside, the late-summer air smelled of cut grass and rain.
The children settled around a small garden table while Rachel retrieved crackers and fruit from her car.
Miles broke his granola bar into four pieces without being asked.
Ivy accepted hers and said, “Grandma could have just asked if we liked noodles.”
“She could have,” I said.
“But she wanted the difference to mean something.”
Hazel pressed a smooth pebble into my palm.
She had carried it in her pocket all day.
“This is for when you're upset,” she whispered.
I held it so tightly that its edges left an imprint in my skin.
Inside, voices rose.
I heard Evelyn say the words “family line” and “responsibility.”
Then I heard Owen say, very clearly, “My children are not an exception to your family.”
I had waited years to hear him speak that plainly.
His mother had always made small comments that could be dismissed if you pretended not to understand them.
She praised Miles for being adventurous and told my daughters to be careful.
She bought him building kits and gave them matching hair ribbons.
When the girls learned to ride bicycles, she asked whether they might prefer dance lessons.
Whenever I objected, she said I was reading too much into things.
Owen had defended the girls, but he often softened his words afterward, desperate to keep peace with his parents.
Tonight there was no softening the printed card.
A few minutes later he stepped onto the patio.
He looked pale, and he was carrying the agenda Caleb had found.
“I'm sorry,” he said to the girls first.
“Grandma was wrong.”
Ivy studied his face.
“Did she think we wouldn't notice?”
“I don't know what she thought,” Owen answered.
“But you shouldn't have been put in that position.”
Wren raised her hand, imitating Ivy.
“Can we have pizza?”
For the first time all evening, Owen laughed.
“Yes. We can have pizza.”
He crouched beside the table.
“First, though, I need to tell your mom something. Will you stay with Aunt Rachel?”
The girls nodded.
Owen led me a few steps toward the garden gate.
“Dad says Mom has been preparing a proposal to change how the proceeds from his old company are distributed,” he said.
“Why would she need a proposal?”
“Because she doesn't control those proceeds.”
Walter had sold his heating-and-cooling company seven years earlier, and the sale had funded a family investment account.
We knew there was money set aside for the grandchildren's education, but Walter had always insisted the gifts were equal.
I looked down at the agenda.
Miles was listed for seventy percent of a proposed new education pool.
The girls, grouped together, would split thirty percent.
“And she planned to introduce this at dinner?” I asked.
“She planned to get Dad to sign it after dessert.”
I looked back through the French doors.
Walter was sitting alone at the head of the table, his shoulders bent.
“He knew?”
“He knew she wanted to discuss it,” Owen said.
“He says he never agreed to these numbers.”
That distinction mattered, but it did not erase his silence while the girls were humiliated.
“Then why didn't he stop the meal?”
Owen swallowed.
“He says he was ashamed.”
“Shame doesn't feed a child or protect one.”
“I know.”
Caleb came outside carrying his phone.
“I have a photo of the sign and the proposal,” he said.
“I'm sending them to both of you so no one can claim we misunderstood.”
He looked at Owen.
“I've spent years pretending Mom's little comments were harmless. I won't do that anymore.”
Owen nodded.
“Neither will I.”
We ordered pizza from a place on the edge of town and ate it at a picnic table in a public park.
The girls chose mushrooms, Miles wanted pepperoni, and all four argued happily about which slice had the most cheese.
The ordinary noise felt like medicine.
But when Owen's phone began buzzing with messages from his mother, he turned it face down.
At ten that night, Walter called.
His voice sounded older than it had at dinner.
“There's something you and Caleb need to know,” he said.
“I've been reviewing the account statements, and I think the dinner was meant to distract us from something else.”


PART TWO — WHAT THE NUMBERS SAID
The next morning Walter asked to meet at Caleb's cabinet shop.
He chose the shop because Evelyn had a habit of arriving uninvited whenever family conversations took place in her house.
Owen and I drove there after dropping the girls at Rachel's parents' home.
I wanted the children to spend the day building forts, not listening to adults argue about money.
Caleb had cleared a workbench and set out coffee, bottled water, and a stack of bank statements.
Walter stood beside the windows, turning his wedding ring around his finger.
“I'm not proud of how I behaved,” he said before anyone sat down.
“I saw the sign. I heard the girls ask why. I should have stood up.”
“You should have,” I replied.
He nodded without defending himself.
“I was afraid another argument would make things worse.”
“It already was worse for them.”
“I know.”
He gestured toward the statements.
“That's why I'm here.”
The education account had been established after the sale of Walter's business.
It wasn't an enormous fortune, but it was substantial enough to change what college or training might cost for four children.
Walter was the account owner, and Evelyn had been allowed to help with administrative paperwork.
She had no independent right to change beneficiaries or make withdrawals.
For years, Walter believed she was simply organizing statements and meeting with the accountant.
Then a quarterly report arrived while Evelyn was away visiting a friend.
He opened it and found a series of transfers to a consulting company he didn't recognize.
The name was Heritage Path Advisory.
At first he assumed it was a legitimate fee for investment advice.
Then he noticed that the company had billed the account every quarter, despite the fact that Walter had never met an adviser or signed an engagement letter.
“How much?” Owen asked.
“Just over forty-two thousand dollars across three years,” Walter said.
Caleb stared at him.
“Mom paid a consultant forty-two thousand dollars without telling you?”
“That's what I thought.”
Walter slid a printed business registration across the workbench.
Heritage Path Advisory had been formed in Colorado by a registered agent.
The contact address was a rented mailbox.
The listed manager was a woman named Brooke Mercer.
Owen's younger sister.
I remembered Brooke at the dinner table, whispering that Evelyn hadn't meant it.
Suddenly the whisper sounded less like reassurance and more like a warning to keep quiet.
“Did Brooke know?” I asked.
Walter's expression tightened.
“She says she was helping her mother with a family planning project.”
“Did the project produce anything?” Caleb asked.
“Not that I can find.”
Owen leaned over the statements.
“Why didn't you call the bank?”
“I did yesterday morning, after the dinner,” Walter said.
“They've put a temporary hold on outgoing transfers while they review the authorization records.”
That answer relieved me.
At least Walter was no longer waiting for the problem to disappear.
He handed us copies of the proposed distribution plan.
The document was styled as a family recommendation, not a legally effective amendment.
Evelyn had written an explanation underneath the numbers.
It said that a male heir would be expected to preserve the family name and therefore required a larger share of educational and leadership resources.
The girls were described as likely to receive support from their future spouses.
I read the sentence three times.
My daughters were six.
Someone had already written imaginary husbands into their financial future as an excuse to give them less.
Caleb looked sick.
“Miles doesn't want this,” he said.
“He wants his cousins to come to his birthday party.”
Walter nodded.
“I know.”
“Then why did Mom think I'd agree?”
“Because she thought you'd be flattered.”
Caleb let out a short, humorless laugh.
“She's never understood what kind of father I want to be.”
Owen reached for my hand.
“We need to separate two things,” he said.
“The dinner was cruel. The account may have been misused. We should address both, but we shouldn't assume every dollar was stolen until the records are checked.”
It was a sensible distinction.
Anger was not evidence, and the last thing I wanted was to let Evelyn dismiss our concerns as revenge.
We agreed that Walter would hire an independent accountant and speak with an attorney who handled trusts and financial exploitation.
Caleb and Owen would preserve the photographs and messages from dinner.
I would write down the children's exact words while they were fresh in my memory.
Then Walter said something that surprised all of us.
“I want to talk to the girls.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About how I failed them.”
I thought of him staring into his glass while the noodles cooled.
“Not yet,” I said.
“They need time, and I won't make them responsible for helping you feel forgiven.”
He closed his eyes.
“That's fair.”
The accountant's preliminary review took four days.
During that time Evelyn sent a stream of messages to the family group chat.
She called the dinner a misunderstanding.
She accused me of turning the children against her.
She wrote that modern parents were too sensitive and that traditions had become impossible to maintain.
When no one answered, she sent a picture of the Wagyu receipt.
“See?” she wrote.
“I spent a fortune trying to make a lovely evening.”
Caleb replied with a photograph of the BOYS ONLY card.
“You spent the money to make a point,” he wrote.
“And the children understood it perfectly.”
The group chat went silent for almost an hour.
Then Brooke called Owen.
I was sitting beside him when he answered on speakerphone.
“Mom is devastated,” Brooke began.
“She says Natalie humiliated her in her own house.”
Owen looked at me before responding.
“Mom humiliated three children in front of the family.”
Brooke sighed.
“You're making it sound malicious.”
“It was printed on a card, Brooke. She planned it.”
“She just wants the family name protected.”
“The girls have the family name.”
“For now,” Brooke said.
Owen's expression changed.
He recognized the phrase immediately.
“You sound exactly like her.”
“Don't be dramatic.”
“Did you receive payments from the education account?”
There was a long pause.
“Who told you that?”
“Dad found the statements.”
“Those were legitimate planning expenses.”
“Then you can explain the work to the accountant.”
Brooke ended the call without saying goodbye.
Two days later the accountant called Walter with a finding that changed the situation.
The transfers had been authorized through an online login associated with Evelyn's email address.
The payments went to Heritage Path Advisory, which had issued invoices for services described only as “legacy strategy.”
There were no attached reports, meeting notes, or contracts in the records Walter supplied.
That didn't prove fraud by itself, the accountant warned, but it required a thorough review.
More troubling was a draft form requesting changes to the beneficiaries.
Walter's signature appeared at the bottom.
Walter stared at it for a long time.
“I never signed that,” he said.
Owen asked him to look again.
Walter shook his head.
“That's not my signature. Somebody copied it.”
The room fell quiet.
Caleb put down his coffee.
“Then we have a much bigger problem than dinner.”
I looked at the form, then at the photograph of the four children's plates.
The two documents had something in common.
Both showed a family hierarchy someone had been trying to make official.
And both had been created without the consent of the people who would live with the consequences.


PART THREE — THE MEETING EVELYN DEMANDED
Evelyn insisted on a family meeting the following Sunday.
She wanted it at her house, around the same dining table, with the same white hydrangeas in the center.
We declined.
Walter's attorney offered a conference room at her office, and Evelyn reluctantly agreed after learning that Walter would not discuss the account anywhere else.
I did not bring the children.
Neither did Caleb and Rachel.
They had already been made props in one adult performance.
They would not attend another.
Evelyn arrived wearing a navy suit and carrying a folder thick with papers.
Brooke followed her, looking as though she had not slept.
Walter sat beside his attorney, Ms. Rivera, who began by explaining that the meeting was an opportunity to clarify facts, not a trial.
She reminded everyone that accusations should be supported by documents.
Evelyn immediately turned toward me.
“This all began because Natalie cannot accept a simple family tradition.”
“No,” Walter said.
“This began because you made four children sit at one table and told three of them they mattered less.”
Evelyn blinked.
Walter had rarely contradicted her in public.
“And now,” he continued, “we have account transfers and a signature I don't recognize.”
Brooke leaned forward.
“Dad, I can explain the consulting company.”
“Please do,” Ms. Rivera said.
Brooke opened her folder.
She said Heritage Path Advisory had been formed to organize family records and develop a plan for future generations.
She described hours spent gathering school information, comparing savings strategies, and preparing beneficiary summaries.
Ms. Rivera asked for the underlying work product.
Brooke produced three spreadsheets and a six-page memo.
The spreadsheets were dated only a week earlier.
The memo repeated the same language Evelyn had used at dinner about boys preserving the family name.
Ms. Rivera did not comment on the language.
She asked for invoices, time records, correspondence, and evidence of Walter's authorization.
Brooke said those documents were on an old laptop.
“Then preserve the laptop,” Ms. Rivera answered.
“We will request the records through the appropriate process.”
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“You're treating your own daughter like a criminal.”
“I'm treating the account like it belongs to the person who owns it,” Walter replied.
He looked at Brooke.
“I love you. But loving you doesn't mean I can ignore unexplained payments.”
Brooke's eyes filled with tears.
For a moment I thought she might apologize.
Instead she turned toward me.
“You've always wanted to split this family.”
I felt Owen's hand settle on the table beside mine.
I didn't need him to speak for me, but his presence helped.
“I wanted my daughters to eat dinner without being told they were worth less than their cousin,” I said.
“That is the whole of what I wanted that night.”
Evelyn scoffed.
“It's not about worth. It's about lineage.”
Caleb spoke for the first time.
“Then explain it to Miles.”
Evelyn frowned.
“What?”
“Explain why his cousins got noodles while he got steak. Explain why he should inherit a larger share because of something none of the children chose.”
“He's too young to understand.”
“He understood enough to push his plate away.”
Rachel placed a folded drawing on the table.
It showed four stick figures sitting beneath a large yellow sun.
Each figure held a slice of pizza.
Wren had written their names in uneven letters.
Rachel said, “She drew this after we left your house.”
Evelyn glanced at the picture.
“That's sweet.”
“It's what she wanted dinner to look like,” Rachel said.
“Four children eating together.”
Evelyn looked away.
Ms. Rivera returned to the draft beneficiary form.
She laid Walter's verified signature beside the one on the document.
The differences were visible, though a handwriting expert would have to determine their significance.
“Mr. Mercer states that he did not sign this,” she said.
“We will notify the account administrator and request the original records.”
Brooke shifted in her seat.
“I didn't forge anything.”
“No one has said you did,” Ms. Rivera replied.
“We are asking how the document was created.”
Evelyn finally admitted she had asked an assistant to prepare the draft using an old scanned signature as a placeholder.
She claimed she intended to show Walter the final version before submitting anything.
Walter stared at her.
“You put my signature on a form without asking?”
“It was a draft.”
“It looked ready to send.”
“I would never have sent it without telling you.”
“Then why didn't you tell me about the consulting payments?”
Evelyn's face flushed.
“Because you dismiss everything I do for this family.”
Walter took a long breath.
“For forty years, you have been my partner. That doesn't make my signature yours.”
The words seemed to hurt her more than any accusation.
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
The meeting ended without reconciliation.
Walter authorized his attorney to seek the account records and requested that all future beneficiary changes require independent verification.
He also removed Evelyn's administrative access while the review continued.
Brooke was asked to preserve the consulting company's records and account for the services billed.
No one announced a verdict.
There wasn't one yet.
But there was a boundary, and it was real.
In the parking lot, Owen caught up with his father.
“Dad,” he said, “I need to ask you something.”
Walter turned.
“Why did you let Mom treat the girls that way for so long?”
Walter looked at the asphalt.
“Because every time I thought about speaking, I told myself it would only be one more argument.”
Owen waited.
“And because I was a coward,” Walter added.
“I don't have a better answer.”
I appreciated that he didn't ask us to excuse him.
He had finally said the truth without trying to make it smaller.
The financial review continued through September.
The account administrator confirmed that the draft beneficiary change had never been processed.
The original equal allocations remained in place.
The disputed consulting payments were referred for legal review, and Brooke agreed through counsel to return a portion while documentation of the remaining services was examined.
Those were not dramatic courtroom revelations.
They were slow, careful steps, exactly the kind needed when money and family loyalty had become tangled together.
Meanwhile, Evelyn sent the girls three identical packages.
Inside were expensive dresses and a note that said she hoped they could put the unpleasant dinner behind them.
There was no apology for the sign.
No acknowledgment of the noodles.
No recognition of the words she had spoken.
I returned the dresses with a short letter.
“The girls do not need gifts to replace respect,” I wrote.
“If you want to rebuild trust, begin by acknowledging what happened.”
Evelyn called Owen that night.
He listened for a few minutes and then said, “Mom, this isn't a negotiation over presents.”
She cried.
He did not change his answer.
I could see how difficult it was for him.
But when he hung up, he sat with me on the sofa and said something I'd needed to hear for years.
“I kept thinking I could protect everyone by keeping the peace,” he said.
“I didn't realize whose peace I was protecting.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“The girls noticed,” I said.
“I know. And I'm going to make sure they notice what we do next.”


PART FOUR — A DIFFERENT KIND OF LEGACY
The first frost arrived early that year.
By October, the girls had begun first grade, Miles was practicing reading chapter books, and the four cousins were planning a backyard treasure hunt.
Their friendship had survived the dinner because we refused to make them responsible for the adults' mistakes.
Ivy still asked questions.
Hazel still brought home stones.
Wren still drew everyone with impossibly large smiles.
But one afternoon, while we were sorting socks, Ivy asked whether Grandma Evelyn loved Miles more.
I sat beside her on the floor.
“I can't tell you what is in Grandma's heart,” I said.
“I can tell you that what she did was wrong, and that you didn't cause it.”
“Was it because we're girls?”
“Yes. She believes some things about boys and girls that aren't fair.”
Ivy thought about that.
“Can people stop believing wrong things?”
“Sometimes. But they have to want to.”
She nodded, satisfied enough to return to her socks.
I wished adult questions were as easy to answer.
Walter began visiting the children at our house, with our permission and on their schedule.
The first time he arrived, he brought no gifts.
He sat on the living room rug and apologized.
“I should have said something at dinner,” he told them.
“I didn't, and that was wrong.”
Hazel listened quietly, then asked whether he wanted to see her rock collection.
Walter said yes.
For forty minutes he listened to her describe granite, quartz, and a stone shaped like a potato.
He didn't try to turn the visit into a lesson about forgiveness.
He let the children decide what happened next.
The second time he came, he helped Miles and the girls build a cardboard castle.
When the children argued about who should be king, Miles announced that the castle could have four rulers.
“That's not how castles work,” Ivy objected.
“It's our castle,” Miles replied.
Walter smiled at that.
He looked at me across the room, and I knew he understood why the answer mattered.
In November, the accountant completed the financial review.
The final report found inadequate records for a significant portion of Heritage Path Advisory's fees.
Walter and Brooke reached a civil settlement requiring repayment and independent oversight of future family-account expenses.
The proposed unequal distribution was abandoned.
Walter also updated his estate planning documents with an independent attorney to clarify that gifts to grandchildren would not depend on gender or surname.
We didn't celebrate the settlement.
The money had been meant to support the children's futures, and it was painful that protecting it had required such formal measures.
Brooke stopped calling for a while.
When she eventually reached out, she did so through a brief letter.
She admitted she had allowed her mother to use her company for work she had not properly documented.
She said she was ashamed of how she had spoken about the girls.
I read the letter twice.
It did not erase what happened, but it was more honest than the packages of dresses.
I told Owen I was willing to consider a conversation with Brooke after the holidays.
Evelyn remained another matter.
She sent a handwritten card in early December.
It began with several sentences about how much she had always done for the family.
Then, halfway down the page, she wrote, “I was wrong to separate the children at dinner. I hurt them, and I am sorry.”
It was the first time she had named the harm without adding an excuse.
I didn't know whether she had changed her beliefs.
I did know that an apology was a beginning, not a guarantee.
Owen and I discussed it for several evenings.
We agreed that any future visit would be short, supervised, and focused on the children, with no lectures about family names or inheritance.
If she crossed that boundary, we would leave.
There would be no debate in front of the girls.
Evelyn accepted those terms in writing.
The first visit took place at a public library's winter craft afternoon.
She arrived without expensive presents or a carefully planned speech.
She brought four identical packets of colored paper.
The children were making paper lanterns.
Miles wanted his to look like a spaceship.
Ivy chose stars.
Hazel made a mountain.
Wren drew a family of birds.
Evelyn sat across from them, awkward and quiet.
At one point she looked at Ivy and said, “I owe you an apology for the dinner.”
Ivy kept folding her paper.
“Because of the noodles?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said.
“And because I told you something unfair about girls.”
Ivy looked up.
“Did you think we weren't really Mercers?”
Evelyn swallowed.
“I said something that made it sound that way. I was wrong.”
Wren asked whether she could borrow the green marker.
Evelyn handed it to her.
The conversation ended there, not because everything had been fixed, but because the children had other things to do.
I thought that was healthy.
A child should not have to deliver a verdict on an adult's apology.
Over the next few months, Evelyn made an effort to change the way she spoke.
She sometimes stumbled.
Once she praised Miles for being “the little man of the family,” and Owen reminded her that he was a child, not an heir in training.
She accepted the correction without arguing.
Another time she asked Hazel about her rocks instead of commenting on her dress.
Small things, perhaps, but small things had been the beginning of the problem too.
The following August, nearly a year after the Legacy Dinner, we hosted a family meal in our own backyard.
We didn't call it a legacy dinner.
We called it Saturday supper.
Owen grilled chicken and vegetables, Rachel made cornbread, and Caleb brought a tray of peaches from a farm stand.
Walter arrived with lemonade.
Brooke came later, nervous but willing to help set the table.
Evelyn brought a salad and asked where to put it.
Nobody assigned food according to gender.
Nobody used gold lettering for one child and black ink for the others.
Four children helped write the place cards in crayon, and each card had a crooked star.
When we sat down, Miles reached for the peaches.
“Can I have two?” he asked.
“After everyone gets one,” Caleb said.
Miles nodded and passed the bowl to Ivy.
I watched my daughters take their portions without hesitation.
They were not wondering whether the good food was meant for someone else.
They were busy arguing about which peach was the sweetest.
Walter raised his glass.
“I'd like to say something,” he began.
My shoulders tensed, remembering another dinner and another speech.
But he only said, “I'm glad we're all here.”
He stopped there.
It was enough.
Later, after the plates were cleared, Ivy asked me what the word legacy meant.
She had heard it again at school and wanted a definition.
I considered giving her something from a dictionary.
Instead I pointed toward the yard, where Miles was helping Hazel look for a lost stone while Wren and Rachel held flashlights.
“A legacy is what you leave behind for other people,” I said.
“Money can be part of it. So can a house or a business. But it can also be the way you teach people to treat one another.”
Ivy watched her cousin kneel in the grass.
“Like sharing?”
“Exactly like sharing.”
She thought for a moment, then ran to help them search.
Owen came to stand beside me.
“Do you think things are better?” he asked.
“Better,” I said.
“Not perfect.”
He nodded.
“That's enough to keep working on.”
Across the yard, Miles shouted that he'd found Hazel's stone.
It was small, gray, and ordinary.
Hazel held it up as though it were treasure.
Wren drew a picture of all four children finding it together.
I remembered the green BOYS ONLY card, the cooling noodles, and the way my daughters had looked at their plates.
I couldn't undo that evening.
I could make sure it wasn't the final lesson they learned about belonging.
The children ran back toward the table, asking for dessert.
We served four equal slices of cake.
No signs.
No exceptions.
No child required to earn a place.
And when Ivy asked for another slice, I smiled and said the same thing I said to all of them.
“Let's make sure everybody has enough first.”