I hope you’ll come. Family shouldn’t let misunderstandings destroy what love can rebuild. Your mother would want peace.
No signature.
She didn’t need one.
I picked up a pen and wrote across the note:
My mother would want witnesses.
Grandma looked at it.
Then at me.
For the first time in weeks, she smiled.
“Good.”
I thought that meant we would send the note back.
We didn’t.
Grandma slid it into the yellow folder with the police report, the trust papers, the recordings, and the bank statements.
“Evidence,” she said.
That was when I met Adrian Cole.
He came to Grandma’s house on a rainy Monday, carrying a leather briefcase and wearing a suit so neat it made the room seem underdressed. He was maybe forty, with silver at his temples and tired eyes.
He shook my hand gently, careful of the cast.
“Your mother talked about you often.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.
He sat at the kitchen table and laid out the situation.