I tried my mother next. She picked up on the second ring.
“Oh, good. You got my email,” she said, her voice breezy. I could hear the clack-clack of her keyboard in the background. As a bank manager, she was always multitasking.
“You gave her the keys?” I asked. The words came out as a strangled whisper.
“Yes, I just said that. It’s a wonderful opportunity for her, Caroline. That influencer work she does requires a certain aesthetic. The cabin is perfect for her rustic-chic brand. She’s already got a sponsorship lined up for a mattress.”
“Mom,” I said, standing up so fast my chair squeaked in protest. “You can’t do that. The cabin isn’t yours to give. Um, it’s not yours. It’s mine. Grandpa left it to me. You were at the reading. You know this.”
There was a sigh on the other end, the long, put-upon sound she always made when she felt I was being difficult.
“Caroline, don’t be so technical. You live two hours away. You have your job, your apartment. You’re stable. Molly needs this. She’s trying to build something. And honestly, what are you going to do with a dusty old cabin? It’s basically hers now. You should be happy for her.”
“Happy?” My voice cracked. “You went behind my back as the executor of the will and gave away my property.”
“Oh, stop with that executor nonsense. It’s just a piece of paper. We’re family. And as your mother, I’m telling you, this is what’s best. Molly needs a leg up.”
“And what about what I need?” I was shouting now, the stone of grief in my stomach turning into a volcano of rage. “What about what Grandpa wanted?”
“Your grandfather was an old man,” she said.
And the sudden coldness in her voice stopped me dead.
“He was sentimental. He didn’t understand the real world. Now I have a call to take. We can talk about this later after you’ve calmed down.”
The line clicked, leaving me in a silence that was louder than any scream.
I sank back into my chair, the room spinning. It wasn’t just the cabin. It was the ease with which she had dismissed me, dismissed Grandpa Arthur’s final wish, the casual, cruel theft of the one thing that still connected me to him. They had broken into my grief and stolen the last piece of comfort I had.
I looked at the stacks of paper on my desk, my work as a legal archivist. I dealt in facts, in documents, in binding agreements, and Grandpa Arthur’s was the most binding document of all.
My mother had made a terrible mistake. She had forgotten who I was, what I did for a living, and what she had just tried to take from me. The betrayal was worse than the grief itself.
The next 24 hours were a blur of cold fury. I drove the two hours to the cabin, my little sedan eating up the miles on the familiar highway that wound into the mountains. I didn’t call ahead. I didn’t need to. I had my own key, the original, the one Grandpa Arthur had given me when I was sixteen, tied to a braided leather fob he’d made himself.
When I pulled up the long gravel driveway, my heart seized. My mother’s beige SUV was parked next to a bright pink convertible I didn’t recognize. And Molly. Molly was on the porch, my grandfather’s porch, posing for a photo. She had one hand on her hip, her hair in perfect waves, pouting at a phone propped up on the railing. She was wearing a new crisp-looking flannel shirt and designer boots caked in manufactured mud. Behind her, two large, ugly, bright white planters had been placed on either side of the door, spilling over with plastic flowers.
I got out of the car, the crunch of gravel under my boots feeling like an explosion in the mountain quiet. Molly looked up, her smile freezing when she saw me.
“Oh, hey, Care,” she said, snatching her phone off the railing. “What are you doing here? Mom said you were, you know, upset.”
“Upset,” I repeated, my voice flat.
