Inside, the house was eerily quiet. I moved through the first floor, noting small disturbances—Brandon’s laptop on the dining table, a half-empty whiskey glass beside it, muddy shoes by the door he would never have left there when he lived here.
“Brandon?” I called out, my voice echoing through the rooms that had witnessed forty years of my life.
No answer.
I climbed the stairs, my hand trailing along the banister Nicholas had carved by hand our first year in the house. At the top, I noticed our bedroom door ajar, light spilling into the hallway. I pushed it open.
Brandon stood by the window, staring out at the orchard, his back to me. The room had been ransacked: dresser drawers pulled out, closet doors open, Nicholas’s possessions scattered across the bed we’d shared for four decades.
“Looking for something?” I asked coldly.
He didn’t startle. Didn’t turn around.
“I know there has to be more,” he said. “Dad wouldn’t leave everything to you.”
“Your father trusted me,” I replied. “Something you clearly never learned to do.”
Now he did turn. His face was twisted with something between rage and desperation.
“You’ve destroyed everything,” he said. “The deal’s collapsed. Melissa’s creditors are calling. My firm is investigating why I took so much time off without explanation.”
“Actions have consequences,” I said simply.
He laughed bitterly.
“Always the teacher, even now.”
“Not a lesson,” I corrected. “Justice.”
I moved to the bookshelf and pulled out an old leather-bound copy of Walden, Nicholas’s favorite book—the one he’d read aloud to me during long winter evenings when the children were asleep. From between its pages, I withdrew a sealed envelope.
“Your father wrote this for you the week before he died,” I said. “I was going to give it to you after the funeral, before I understood what you really were.”
Brandon reached for it, but I held it back.
“Did you even grieve for him?” I asked. “Or were you too busy planning how to profit from his death?”
