That one worked. I looked at the cardigan showing through the bag and began counting visits in my head, as if I could make enough of them now.
Then I stopped.
“You keep saying that instead of showing me why the money belongs to you.”
“I’ve explained why.”
“No. You’ve explained why you think you earned it.”
I ended the call before I could offer an apology just to get him to speak to me normally again.
At Victor’s office the next morning, I set my phone on his desk. He listened, but when I asked whether the recording meant I could demand the money back, he reached for a file instead.
“First, you need to see this.”
He laid Mother’s original signed will in front of me. I recognized her signature before I read anything above it. The final stroke ran uphill, the way it did on birthday cards.
Victor showed me the witness signatures and explained that the will had been properly executed. It nominated me as executor. After debts and estate costs, the net estate was to be divided equally between Grant and me.
I read that part twice.
“Half each?”
“Yes.”
I was ashamed of the little drop of disappointment. I hadn’t wanted all the money. But after hearing my brother say she trusted him and not me, I had wanted something on that page to prove I mattered more.
Mother hadn’t written that.
“The recording supports what she wanted,” Victor said. “It doesn’t appoint you executor. This will nominates you. The court has to appoint you before you can act with that authority.”
“So I can’t just walk into his bank.”
“No.”
He explained the application process. I asked him to start it. For once, having something to sign did not feel like being cornered.
The funeral came before the appointment. I stood beside Grant and accepted condolences without telling people what was happening. The house was emptied for the buyers’ agreed possession date the following day. I helped pack it because it needed doing, not because he had won.
The application took longer than the packing. During that wait, Grant asked whether I was really going to make him account for every transaction after everything he had done.
I said yes. Then I sat with the answer, because it sounded cruel even though I knew it wasn’t.
When the court appointment finally came through, Victor explained the order to me. We sent Grant a formal demand for an accounting of the sale proceeds and the money that had entered his account.
Grant called rather than replying in writing.
“I’m not giving up my inheritance because you hired a lawyer.”
“The will gives us equal shares,” I said. “I’m asking you to account for Mother’s money.”
He wanted me to promise I wouldn’t use the records against him. I wouldn’t promise that.
Eventually, he delivered copies of the closing papers and his personal bank statements. I put them on my table beside the court appointment, leaving room to lay the pages out in order. This time, I wasn’t going to accept his explanation before I had read them.
The deposit matched the closing statement. I checked it twice, then followed the withdrawals with the edge of a ruler because my eyes kept skipping ahead.
Forty thousand dollars had gone to a business lender. Not a hospital. Not the funeral home. I circled the transfer and called Grant.
“That’s your business loan, isn’t it?”
He asked which page I was on. I told him, and heard paper moving at his end.
“I was going to sort that out.”
“You told me she gave you the money.”
“She knew the business was in trouble.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
For a while I could hear him breathing. I kept my finger on the circled line, as though he might persuade me it wasn’t there.
“She said no,” he finally said. “I asked her before she got that bad. She said she couldn’t keep putting money into it.”
I took my hand off the page.
“So you waited until you could take it.”
“I didn’t wait for her to die. That’s not what happened.”
The correction was true, and horrible. The sale had closed while she was alive. He had used the authority she’d given him while she could still have told him no again.
“Did you mean to tell me?”
“I thought if you accepted it was mine, we wouldn’t have to get into the loan.”
There it was. He hadn’t misunderstood a conversation or lost a piece of paper. He had counted on my reluctance to fight with him while we buried our mother.
