When my father died, I thought grief had already stripped everything from me. I was wrong. It had one final twist waiting—one that would shake everything I believed about my family, my past, and myself.
The morning of the will reading, rain fell in relentless sheets, turning the city streets into a blur of gray and reflections. I tightened my coat and splashed through puddles, each step carrying me farther from the life I thought I knew.
After my mother passed when I was very young, my father had been my everything—protector, provider, confidant. Or so I believed. In the last years, though, cracks appeared: mounting medical bills, old debts, the house we shared threatened by foreclosure. I had braced myself for the inevitable: nothing would remain. No inheritance. No safety net. Just loss.
Inside the notary’s office, the scent of paper and polish was oddly comforting. The man behind the desk read through the will with a practiced neutrality, his voice fading into the background. Then a single word cut through my fog: “house.”
I froze. “Did you just say… a house?”
He slid a paper toward me. “Yes. A property your father owned. Not the one you lived in together.”
Another house. A place my father never mentioned. I held the document, heart pounding, mind racing. Why hide this?
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