I stood frozen while the man calmly explained that I was my father’s only legal heir.

He spoke to me about a hidden fortune and a secret buried for years.

What I didn’t know was that my father, despite his departure and distance, had left me a part of his past.

The old woman, as I had suspected, was indeed my grandmother, but not the one I had imagined.

She explained, in a gentler tone this time, that my father had chosen to distance himself for my protection.

He had wanted me to grow up away from family conflicts, far from the complicated stories of his family.

When the man handed me the documents and the keys, I was filled with a conflicting emotion.

The pain of my father’s absence mingled with a strange sense of gratitude for this mysterious inheritance.

An inheritance that, while it could never erase the past, now opened a door to a past I had never wanted to explore, but which had now been thrust upon me.