After his death, I had become the beneficiary.
Then something had happened.
No transfer was completed.
The land remained in the estate trust.
Taxes had been paid automatically from a small account.
I stared at her.
“For twenty-two years?”
“Yes.”
“Who was trustee?”
She searched.
“Original trustee was Harold Benson.”
I remembered him.
My grandfather’s attorney.
He had died.
“Successor trustee is listed as Cedar Valley Trust Services.”
My heart started racing.
“Does that mean the land is mine?”
Donna looked cautious.
“You need a lawyer.”
Of course.
Everything required a lawyer.
I laughed bitterly.
“With what money?”
She looked at me.
Then at my clothes.
Maybe she understood.
She gave me the address of a legal aid office.
It was fourteen miles away.
No bus until afternoon.
I waited.
Patch waited outside the records building.
I bought him part of a sandwich.
Then we took the bus.
Legal aid assigned me to a young attorney named Maya Chen.
I expected judgment.
She gave me none.
I told her about prison.
The cave.
The box.
My grandfather.
The house.
Everything.
She listened.
Then examined the documents.
“This is unusual.”
“That seems to be my life.”
She smiled slightly.
Then became serious.
“Do not show these original papers to anyone else.”
“Why?”
“If the land is yours, you need to secure it before family learns.”
“My mother?”
“Anyone.”
That word hurt.
Anyone.
Even family.
Maya contacted the trust company.
The answer came two days later.
The property was indeed mine.
Legally.
The trust had preserved it.
My grandfather had arranged for taxes and basic fees to be paid through a small fund.
Nobody had claimed it.
Nobody had transferred it.
Nobody had apparently even remembered.
The land was forty-one acres.
Mostly hillside.
Forest.
Rock.
One spring.
No house.
No utility lines.
But there was access through an old easement.
And one more thing.
Its value had changed.
A development company had recently begun buying land near the eastern ridge.
They wanted lake-view parcels.
My land sat above the planned expansion.
Maya estimated that developers might offer several hundred thousand dollars.
I stared at her.
“No.”
She blinked.
“No what?”
“I don’t want to sell it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Can they make me?”
“No.”
That was the first time someone had told me I could keep something.
I almost cried again.
Maya helped transfer the property fully into my name.
