Margaret looked up from the file and continued calmly.
— To Courtney Walsh, I leave the house specified in the appendix, all of its contents, and access to the trust created twenty years ago.

Travis jumped to his feet.
— This is a mistake!

— No, — Margaret intervened for the first time. — Your mother was absolutely precise.

Then the names from the letter were read aloud. They were Holly’s witnesses and trusted confidants — those who had known the truth for many years. The truth about how Travis withdrew money from her accounts, how Stella transferred part of the assets to herself while her mother lay in the hospital, and how they were certain that the daughter-in-law would endure everything.

The final clause of the will finished them completely: any attempt to contest it stripped them of even the symbolic shares.

The key fit the safe in the house. Inside were documents, statements, recordings of conversations, and a letter addressed personally to me.
“You were the only one who stayed. That is why you are family.”

I filed for divorce a week later. I sold the house. I transferred the trust to the charity Holly had dreamed of.
And Travis and Stella were left with nothing — except the silence in which they had once left me.