Instead, I said, “He might be confused for a while. But that is not your fault.”
Noah stirred beside us, opening one sleepy eye.
“Are we going to Grandma’s beach house?”
I smiled despite everything.
“Yes.”
He sat up straighter.
“The one with the blue room?”
“The one with the blue room.”
For the first time that morning, he smiled.
It was small, but it was real.
That smile nearly broke me.
My mother had passed away three years earlier, but the condo in Miami had remained in my name through a trust she had created long before I understood why. Ryan had always mocked it as “your mother’s little retirement box,” never realizing she had quietly protected it from him.
She had seen him clearly before I ever could.
When we reached the private waiting lounge, I settled the children with snacks and cartoons on a tablet, then stepped a few feet away and opened Attorney Dawson’s envelope again.
