At my grandmother’s will reading, my mother sat in front of fourteen silent people, watched the lawyer read out a $2.3 million estate that somehow included everyone but me, then turned with a smile so calm it felt practiced and said, “You were always her least favorite.” And for one humiliating second, I thought she had finally found the perfect way to erase me in public.

My name is Tessa Miller and I am currently thirty one years old. Three weeks ago, my mother looked me directly in the eyes during the formal reading of my grandmother’s will and told me that I had always been her least favorite person in the world.

She delivered this cruel sentence in front of fourteen people including my father, my brother, two expensive lawyers, and various family friends while wearing a triumphant smile. My parents had secretly worked to rewrite my grandmother’s will on the very night she passed away to ensure that her two point three million dollar estate was divided entirely between themselves and my brother, Harrison.

I was left with absolutely nothing in that document as there was not a single dollar or even a brief mention of my name in the papers they presented as her final wishes. However, what my mother did not realize was that my grandmother, Rosalind, had been meticulously preparing for this exact moment for over seven years.