He didn’t want to know me, fine. Fine. Fine. FINE.
But it still stung.
Billy discarded two more sheets of paper, presumably a list of all the ways my brother had been a letdown, and took a deep breath before continuing, “‘Jennifer Anne, I leave you the remainder of my worldly possessions. I think with this—’”
“No!” Elena was up on her feet, the single word a lightning strike in the otherwise still room. “No, no. He didn’t. He wouldn’t!”
Billy cast her an irritated side-eye and soldiered on, “‘I think with this unselfish gesture on my part you might feel sorry for how you treated me and misjudged me since coming of age. Though I do forgive you, I hope you do not forgive yourself as easily for your transgressions against your father, whom you did not honor according to your Godly duty. Your disobedience . . .” Billy sighed, scanned the rest of the words on the page he held, glanced at the next page, and shook his head. “Jenn, do you want to hear any more?”
I gaped, my brain processing Billy’s words—my father’s words—in slow motion. “Wha—what did you say?”
“This isn’t right,” Elena shrieked. ”You’re lying!”
Billy leaned over the table and placed the page he’d been reading in front of her. “There you go, read it. It’s handwritten.”
Her gaze frantically searched the page and a strangled-sounding whimper launched from her lips. Frenzied, she grabbed for the rest of the pages, reading each quickly, and slamming them down on the table.
“I don’t understand,” I said dumbly, looking to Billy, then to Cletus. “Why would he do that? He—he couldn’t stand me.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Leeward attempted to continue business. “We should schedule a day to review the extent of your holdings, Jennifer. I took the liberty of gathering your father’s account statements so you could review the liquid assets. The will was sent to probate, but his estate is held in trust.”
“This isn’t right!” Elena, having gone through each page at least three times, fell back in her chair, her hands balled into fists of frustration, her eyes on me filled with such loathing and hate. If she could’ve strangled me in that moment, I felt absolutely certain she would’ve.
Tearing my eyes from the evil intentions in hers, I shook my head to clear it. “I don’t know why he did this. But I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from him. I’d like to follow Billy’s lead. I’d like to donate—”
“Well now, hold on, little lady.” Leeward lifted a hand as though to halt my words and picked up a sealed envelope, holding it out toward me. “You are the owner of quite a lot of property. The question of donation is not a simple one. Your father was a man of significant holdings.”
Elena started to cry. Loudly. “She doesn’t deserve it, any of it! I loved him, I stood by him. She didn’t, I did!”
In the face of her despairing display, I felt nothing but jaded. All the pomp and circumstance, the black veil, the clothes, the tears, the wringing of hands, the gnashing of teeth. What a show. A year ago, I might’ve felt moved. But today, suspecting what I did, I decided to embrace misanthropic instincts and dismiss her completely.
But Cletus sent Elena an irritated glance, leaning forward and turning his body in front of mine as though to shield me from her hysterics. “You’re referring to the farms, Mr. Leeward? The Romero, Becker, Danvish, and Miller parcels?”
My brain stuttered, and I placed a hand on Cletus’s forearm. “Wait, wait. The . . . the Miller farm?” Immediately, my heart took off at a thundering gallop, and for the first time since walking into the office I felt awake to my surroundings.
The Miller farm. With its wildflower field, pond, acreage, grazing prairie, forest, and view. What a temptation.
“I believe, by ‘Miller farm,’ you’re referring to the dairy property, correct?” Mr. Leeward glanced at Elena and squirmed in his seat. “Well, yes. But I believe that Ms. Wilkinson was in talks with its previous owner to transfer the deed back. She can speak better to that.”
Instead of speaking, Elena buried her face in her hands and cried louder.
“Of course,” Mr. Leeward lifted his voice to be heard over her wailing, “you are under no obligation to honor any agreement initiated by Ms. Wilkinson, or by your father prior to his—uh—death.” The lawyer’s features seemed confused on how to arrange themselves, caught somewhere between a grimace and a solicitous smile.
But I was only half listening to the man, my mind on overdrive. I want that farm. I’d wanted the Miller farm since the first time I’d seen it. I loved it. I loved the location, the topography, the versatility of potential uses. It was the most ideally situated spot for my hopes and dreams. The house could be demolished, but the land . . . I want it!
And yet, it wouldn’t be right to keep it. I knew Mr. Miller was desperate for his land, land my father had basically stolen from him. Furthermore, I knew he was desperate to have his cows returned, willing to pay back the exorbitant price my mother had forked over at auction.
Ugh. I wished my father hadn’t left it to me, any of it. I would’ve been happier without having to make the choice, even though I already knew which choice I’d make. It’s not mine to keep.
“Pardon me, sir.” Cletus leaned forward slowly. A peculiar something, a carefulness in his tone had me surfacing from my messy thoughts. He placed a hand on the conference table and narrowed his eyes on Elena as he spoke, “The Miller farm, the dairy, did Kipling wish to transfer ownership, or was that something Ms. Wilkinson initiated—as you say—after his death?”
“Don’t answer that,” Elena stood again, sniffling, swiping at her cheeks. “As my lawyer, I forbid you from answering any questions about me, or my personal business, asked by these people.”
Cletus’s lips parted, he blinked, and he exhaled a short puff of breath. I recognized this combo as a rare display of genuine surprise.
He said, “You—”
She stiffened.
“—and Miller.”
Elena Wilkinson flinched. Her eyes rimmed with true terror, her chest rose and fell rapidly, her whole body shaking as she stared at Cletus and he stared back, and I struggled to catch up with the implications of what he’d just said.
Elena and Kenneth Miller?
She grabbed for the haphazardly stacked letter she’d just discarded, shoved it into her bag, and fled the room, leaving the rest of us staring after her.
Except Cletus. Cletus hadn’t turned his head to watch her go. Likely because he knew where—and to whom—she was going. And why.
I have no idea how long my stupor lasted, only that, when what Cletus had said finally permeated my brain, I felt the weight of Isaac’s concentrated attention on me.
“You had no idea,” my brother said like he was realizing the words as he spoke them.
I looked at him, frowning. “No idea about what?”
“About the will. You didn’t know he’d changed it.” The way he inspected me, like I was someone he didn’t know, felt like a punch in the stomach.
My chin wobbled, and I stood. “Of course I didn’t know, Twilight. Do you think I’d be here if I knew? I don’t want anything from him, I never did.”