My father, Victor Hale, looked at me with the same cold smile he wore when I was twelve and begged him not to sell Grandma’s house.
“You heard the lawyer,” he said. “She left you that little book. Not money. Not land. A book. Typical old woman nonsense.”
My stepmother, Celeste, let out a soft laugh behind her veil.
My half-brother Mark leaned closer. “Maybe there’s a dollar in it. Buy yourself lunch.”
A few cousins snickered.
I didn’t move.
The priest cleared his throat, uneasy. The lawyer, Mr. Bell, looked pale but stayed silent. He had already read the will beneath a dripping cemetery tent: Grandma left her “savings book and all rights attached to it” to me, her granddaughter, Elise.
My father received nothing.
That was why his mouth had twisted.
