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.

“You are the only one in this family with a soul, Tessa, and I want you to remember that when things get difficult,” Rosalind told me with a voice that was both firm and full of love. She had also sent me a tin of her famous brown butter oatmeal cookies and tucked inside was a small note telling me that the world desperately needed more people like me.

Rosalind was eighty two years old at the time and possessed a sharp wit that could cut through any pretense while often reminding me that money was the ultimate tool for revealing a person’s true character. She possessed her own wealth that was kept entirely separate from the family business and though I never asked about the details of her finances, she always seemed to be watching everyone with a knowing look.

“Money shows you who people really are,” she would often whisper to me while we sat in her garden sipping tea and watching my parents brag about their new cars. The call that changed everything arrived on a rainy Wednesday night while I was busy grading spelling tests at my small kitchen table.