My mother squeezed my wrist before reading the will and whispered, “If you receive a single dollar, I’ll destroy you”… but when the lawyer opened another file, the entire courtroom discovered who had locked my grandmother up and why.

Three months passed and every Sunday I mailed her a card about small things in my life. My mother called me only once during that time to tell me Pearl was changing her estate and that I should focus on my little job.

I tried to find lawyers, but the advance alone cost three months of rent and I had no proof of any wrongdoing. Until one night in November, I received a message from an unknown number saying my grandmother was in palliative care.

I went immediately to the facility in Beaufort, but the receptionist told me I was not on the authorized visitor list. My mother had made a list to decide who could say goodbye to her own mother, and I was intentionally left off.

Two weeks later, Miranda called me at seven in the morning to say Pearl had died and that the funeral was on Thursday. At the service, a nurse from the parking lot approached me and whispered that my grandmother talked about me every day.

Part 2

The office of attorney Silas Thorne was on the second floor of an old brick building downtown. My mother sat to the lawyer’s left, already wearing my grandmother’s pearl earrings before a single line had been read.

“If you get a single cent, I will destroy you,” Miranda whispered to me while digging her nails into my skin. The lawyer began to read the original will which left the house and all savings to Miranda Sterling.

The jewelry, furniture, and books were also left to my mother with the right to distribute them as she saw fit. Miranda looked at me with the serene satisfaction of someone who wanted to see me lose everything.

“See? My mother knew who was truly with her at the end,” she whispered. She stood up and began to speak of her own sacrifices and the daughter’s love she claimed to have shown.

“Jade did not even visit her once in three months, and my mother died wondering why she was abandoned,” she said with venomous cruelty. I felt the floor move because she had built a wall between us and was now using that wall as proof I didn’t care.

For a moment I thought I hadn’t fought hard enough, but then I noticed the lawyer had not closed the file. Beneath the first stack of papers was a second folder held together with a bright red clip.

“Is there anything else?” my mother asked with a small, nervous laugh. Attorney Thorne took the second set of documents and placed them in front of him with a calm expression.