Adelaide had written the letter eighteen months before her death, entirely in her own handwriting. Ashby read it aloud because that was exactly what she had requested. She wrote that she had been neither confused nor manipulated, and certainly not senile. She even named my father, knowing he would eventually use those accusations against me. Adelaide wanted her own voice to answer him, even after she was gone.

Then she explained why she had left everything to me. For nine years, my parents had quietly borrowed money from her, always promising to repay it, while funneling those funds toward Seraphina and her household. Adelaide had documented every transfer and every broken promise. She had watched my parents treat one granddaughter like an investment and the other like a resource. The second page made my mother’s face change completely. Adelaide had already deducted roughly ninety thousand dollars from the estate—the exact amount my parents had taken—and ordered it donated to an animal shelter instead of giving it to me.