Now it held everything I still had of him that wasn’t about to be handed away.
Two years.
That was how long it had been since he got sick. Two years of hospital rooms, legal forms, quiet conversations, and promises that turned out to be worth less than the ink used to write them.
And now every assumption I had carried, every foolish belief that fairness would naturally survive him, was being translated into legal fact right in front of me.
The attorney began to read.
His voice was smooth, professional, carefully neutral in the way that makes anything sound reasonable if you say it slowly enough.
“Primary residence located on Cedar Hollow Road…”
My grandfather’s house.
Gone.
“…to Robert and Helen Carter.”
My parents.
Of course.
Then came the truck. The land. The south pasture. The equipment. The savings. The timber rights. Even the gun cabinet my father had begun referring to as his before my grandfather’s funeral flowers had wilted.
Every item followed the same pattern.
Read. Assigned. Finished.
Them.
Always them.
It was clean. Efficient. Almost elegant, if you ignored the fact that it felt like watching a man’s whole life stripped down and relabeled as inventory.
I didn’t interrupt.