Chapter 3: What the Second Page Said
I turned it over slowly.
The second page was a witness attestation.
Two signatures confirming that my father had been of sound mind and had made the amendment willingly.
The first signature belonged to the attorney.
A man named Gerald Holt, who had handled my family's legal affairs for over twenty years.
The second signature was my brother's.
I stood there long enough that Mia tugged my sleeve.
"Dad?"
"Go to your room for a bit, sweetheart.
I'll come get you soon."
She looked up at me.
She didn't move.
"Is Grandma coming back?"
"No," I said.
"She's not."
Mia studied my face for a moment the way children do when they're deciding whether to believe you.
Then she nodded and walked out, pulling the door almost shut behind her.
I sat down on the edge of the desk.
My brother's name was Daniel.
He was four years younger than me, lived forty minutes away, and had called me twice in the past three months — once to ask if I needed help with Dad's medical bills, once to say he was thinking of us.
Both times I had thanked him and meant it.
I picked up my phone and called him.
He answered on the second ring.
"Hey.
How are you holding up?"
"I need you to come over," I said.
"Tonight."
A pause.
"Everything okay?"
"No."
Another pause, longer.
"I'll be there in an hour."
I set the phone down and looked at the document again.
My father's estate wasn't enormous, but it wasn't small either.
The house he had built.
The savings account he had never touched.
A piece of land outside the city that had been in the family since before I was born.
All of it, redirected.
All of it, signed away three weeks before he closed his eyes for the last time.
I thought about the last time I had seen him lucid.
He had held my hand and asked me to look after Mia.
He had said her name twice, like he wanted to make sure I heard it.
He had not said a word about the estate.
I heard Mia's door close down the hall.
Then quiet.
I turned to the first page again and read the date at the top.
Three weeks before he passed meant he had still been in the hospital.
He had been on two medications that his doctor had told us affected his concentration.
I remembered sitting beside his bed and watching him struggle to follow a simple conversation.
I remembered my mother being in that room every single day.
The front door opened downstairs before the hour was up.
Daniel's footsteps on the stairs were fast.
He came through the bedroom door and stopped when he saw my face.
"What happened?"
I held out the document.
He took it.
I watched him read.
His expression didn't change for the first page.
Then he turned to the second page and went very still.
"That's your signature," I said.
He looked up.
"Daniel.
That is your signature."
"I know," he said quietly.
The room felt smaller suddenly.
"Then you need to explain it to me right now."
He set the document on the desk.
He didn't sit down.
He looked at the window instead of at me, and I felt something cold move through my chest — because that was the look of a man deciding how much of the truth to give.
"She told me it was just a formality," he said.
"She said Dad had already decided.
That you'd agreed."
"I never agreed to anything."
"I know that now."
"You signed a legal document removing me from my father's estate and you didn't call me first?"
He turned from the window.
"She said you two had already talked.
That you didn't want the responsibility.
That you'd told her to handle it."
I stared at him.
"She lied to both of us," he said.
His voice had gone flat.
"Didn't she."
It wasn't a question.
But I answered it anyway.
"Yes."
Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed and put his face in his hands.
I let him sit there.
I needed a moment too.
Then his phone buzzed on his knee.
He looked at the screen and his jaw tightened.
He turned the phone so I could see it.
A text from our mother: *He's going to call you.
Don't say anything yet.
I'll explain everything tomorrow.*
May you like
The message had been sent four minutes ago.
Two minutes after I had called him.
