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.

My father looked at me.

“I will.”

I studied him.

“Not just the money.”

He nodded.

“Not just the money.”

“You’ll tell Tyler the truth.”

“Yes.”

“And my stepmother.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll provide every document you have.”

“I will.”

“And you won’t contact me until I decide I’m ready.”

He swallowed.

“I understand.”

That was the first boundary I had ever set with him that he did not challenge.

Richard prepared a written agreement before my father left. It required him to disclose all accounts, return the money taken from my savings, and cooperate with the investigation into the forged signature. It also required him to make no claim against the Brooks estate.

My father signed without protest.

At the door, he paused.

“Your mother would have wanted you to keep the house,” he said.

I looked past him toward the orchard.

“Maybe.”

“She loved that place.”