It was mostly about Brett.
Lindsay read a poem she’d found online.
Nobody mentioned that the last person to see June Ostrander alive, other than her caregiver, had been her granddaughter in the third row, on a video call from a ship, at 3 a.m. Pacific time, for nineteen minutes, while a chaplain held the tablet.
I did not mention it either.
Nana had asked me not to.
“Let them have the front row,” she’d written.
“I’ve reserved you a different seat.”
So when I received notice that they were contesting the will, I wasn’t shocked.
When I read their allegations — that I had manipulated my elderly grandmother and was incapable of responsibly managing such a large inheritance — I felt something far colder than anger.
I felt certainty.
Because I had read a great many petitions like that one.
I had, in fact, written the rebuttals to several.
The hearing took place three months later.
I arrived early.
No designer clothing.
No expensive jewelry.
Nothing that attracted attention.
Just a simple navy suit, neatly organized folders, and a calm expression.
I took my seat at the respondent’s table without speaking, alone, because I had not hired counsel, and I had told the clerk why in a filing my parents’ lawyer had evidently not read.
A few minutes later, my parents entered with their attorney.
Confidence practically radiated from them.
My mother spotted me immediately and rolled her eyes.
She was wearing the pearls.
My father didn’t even attempt to hide his hostility.
“She doesn’t deserve a dollar,” he announced loudly enough for several people nearby to hear.
“She’s always caused problems.”
Their attorney, a silver-haired man named Gil Farrow, smiled politely.
To him, this was a straightforward case.
To all of them, I was still the same daughter they had underestimated for decades.
Quiet.
Compliant.
Easy to overpower.
The girl who “drifted” after college.
The girl who “never settled.”
The girl who, according to the petition on the judge’s desk, was “unemployed, itinerant, and without fixed residence for the past eleven years.”
Eleven years.
They had that number right, at least.
The proceedings began.
Their lawyer spoke first.
He portrayed me as unstable, irresponsible, and somehow capable of convincing my grandmother to disinherit her own children.
He spoke with absolute confidence.
As though my character had already been decided.
I didn’t interrupt.
I didn’t argue.
I simply listened.
And waited.
Then the judge — the Honorable Thomas Harmon, sixty-six, thirty years on the bench — began reviewing the case file.
He turned one page.
Then another.
Suddenly, he stopped.
His eyes remained fixed on a single document.
It was the third exhibit in my response, filed six weeks ago, on letterhead my parents’ attorney had apparently mistaken for a form.
Several long seconds passed.
Then he slowly looked up at me.
The courtroom grew quiet.
