I went to bu:ry my father… and found my husband’s mistress sitting in the front row, wearing my missing Versace like it belonged to her.

Grant had not been subtle so much as sheltered.

Because he’d spent years cushioned by my father’s money, he’d developed the carelessness of a man who believed consequences were for other people. He used joint accounts to pay for hotel suites and gifts. He charged dinners with Becca to a household card labeled entertainment because apparently if you write a lie into QuickBooks it becomes elegant. He had also, more seriously, used my family name in business presentations to imply backing he did not actually control.
Priya slid a binder across the conference table one Tuesday morning and said, “The problem with mediocre liars is they always think they’re the smartest person in the room.”I liked her immediately.

The office smelled like toner and lemon polish. Outside the windows, downtown shimmered in heat. Inside, the conference room was cold enough to preserve a body.

“There’s one thing you should see,” Priya said.

She opened to a flagged page. It was an email chain between Grant and a private banker. The wording danced around specifics, but the meaning was clear enough: he had been exploring a line of credit secured against expected future liquidity tied to “forthcoming family asset access.”

I read it twice.

“He was borrowing against money that wasn’t his yet,” I said.

“He was trying to,” Priya corrected. “The banker got nervous and asked for documentation. He never produced it.”

Blackwood leaned back in his chair. “Your father’s timing may have prevented a much larger mess.”

The room went quiet.

That happened sometimes. In the middle of all the legal strategy and anger, grief would rise like groundwater. My father was still dead. Everything he protected me from, he protected me from while dying. There was no version of this where I got to thank him properly.

I closed the binder.

“What’s Grant doing now?”

Blackwood’s mouth flattened. “Contest posture. He’s implying emotional instability, trying to frame your funeral remarks as evidence of impulsivity, and making noise about challenging the will on capacity grounds.”

I stared at him. “Capacity?”

“Yes.”

I actually laughed. The sound came out sharp enough to make Priya glance up. “My father cross-examined a hospice doctor about dosage levels from his own bed because he thought the man was oversimplifying. He was lucid enough to rearrange three trusts and add a personal insult clause.”