My father threw me out on my eighteenth birthday, stole the $3,000 I’d saved from working after school, and used it for my stepbrother. Nine days later, while I was digging through a restaurant dumpster for something to eat, a stranger in an expensive suit called my name and told me my supposedly dead grandfather had left me everything. But there was one condition nobody had warned me about.

Richard recognized it immediately.

“That’s the number for a supplemental filing,” he said. “I submitted it three weeks ago.”

I looked at him.

“You did this?”

“I was trying to determine whether your mother had any unresolved financial arrangements connected to the trust. Your grandfather’s records were incomplete.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I hadn’t confirmed the account. I didn’t want to raise your hopes over an interpretation of an old document.”

My father looked from Richard to me.

“So the money is still there?”

“Possibly,” Richard said. “But it may not belong to the trust anymore. We need to review the account history and your mother’s estate documents.”

“My mother’s estate?”

Richard nodded.

“She left a small estate, mostly medical debts and personal belongings. Your father was named administrator.”

I turned toward my father.

“You knew she had an estate account?”