“The will is quite clear, Mrs. Hathaway.”
The lawyer didn’t even look up from his papers when he said it.
“Your late husband left the bulk of his estate to your son, Andre. The family home. The investment accounts. The business holdings.”
I was sitting in a cold conference room on the twelfth floor of an office building in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Gray carpet. A long mahogany table. A window that looked out at another office building.
Across the table sat my son, Andre. And his wife, Melissa.
Their faces were as cold as marble.
And spread out on the table between us were the legal documents that were about to take away everything I’d ever called mine.
My hands were shaking as I stared at the papers.
My husband’s signature was right there at the bottom. Randall Hathaway. In his familiar, careful handwriting.
It looked real.
But something felt wrong. Terribly wrong.
For thirty-nine years, Randall promised me we’d grow old together in our house on Maple Ridge Drive. He promised me I’d never want for anything.
“And what about me?” I whispered.
My voice was barely loud enough to hear in that silent room.
Melissa leaned forward. Her perfectly manicured fingernails drummed against the mahogany table.
“You get the cabin, Mother Henrietta,” she said sweetly. “The one in Beacon Falls. The one Randall bought years ago for hunting.”
I knew that place.
A falling-down wooden shack on a quarter acre of worthless land in the woods. More fit for a bulldozer than a person. Randall used to call it his thinking spot. I never understood what there was to think about in a place like that.
“That’s it?”
The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
My name is Henrietta Hathaway. I’m sixty-two years old.
Three weeks before I sat in that conference room, I buried my husband.
I watched pneumonia slowly steal his breath. Then his voice. Then him. Right out of the house we’d lived in for thirty-nine years.
I thought that was the worst pain I’d ever feel.
I was wrong.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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