My hands shook so hard that the seal took three tries to break.
"Garrett instructed me to wait."
I read the first line.
My knees gave out right there in the dirt, but the wind kept pulling at the sheets above me as though nothing in the world had changed.
***
Inside the trailer, Mr. Whitfield set the letter on the small kitchen table and waited while I gathered myself.
"Garrett wrote this six months before he passed," he said quietly. "He knew exactly what they'd do, Eleanor."
I read the rest with shaking hands. Garrett had let his children keep the mansion and every visible inch of the estate, exactly as they had expected.
My knees gave out.
But years earlier, long before Margaret pressured him to redraw his will, he'd quietly created a separate trust.
"A lake cottage, lifetime income, and this," Mr. Whitfield explained. "The children are already aware of all of this. I told them before coming here."
