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.

“Had you already spent money that belonged to Nathan?” I asked.

“Not at that time.”

“But she expected you might.”

He did not answer.

The records showed that my mother had made the arrangement three months before her death. She had also written a letter to the bank requesting that all correspondence be sent to her father and to Richard.

That explained why my grandfather knew about the account.

It did not explain why the bank had listed Claire as the beneficiary years later.

Richard found the answer in a supplemental page attached to the agreement.

“She updated the designation,” he said.

I looked over his shoulder.

The page was dated two weeks before she died.

Beneficiary: Claire Brooks, trustee for Nathaniel Brooks.

My mother had not named herself for her own benefit. She had named herself as trustee for me, likely because she did not trust my father to act in that role.