At the will reading, my sister got $500,000 in cash. I got Grandma’s old, crumbling farmhouse—“with all its contents and responsibilities.” But it wasn’t until I opened the closet and found the mirror with a hidden handle that I realized what she’d really left me.

The room smelled like coffee, leather, and dust—the kind of smell that clings to old law offices and older secrets.

I sat stiff in the high-backed chair, hands folded in my lap, knees tight.
Claire sat beside me, dabbing fake tears with a silk handkerchief like we were at some movie set, not Grandma’s will reading. Of course, she cried.

Claire always knew how to cry in a way that made people want to comfort her. It was her special gift.