PART 3
Grant came back onto the phone.
“Dad, this isn’t funny.”
Dad smiled faintly.
“I agree.”
His smile disappeared.
“It isn’t.”
Vanessa’s breathing became audible.
“Dad, we got the paperwork.”
“I know.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly.”
Dad picked up his coffee again.
“You two called my daughter at six-thirty in the morning and told her I was dead.”
Neither of them answered.
Dad took a sip.
“Then you told her my house belonged to you.”
Still nothing.
“You told her my truck belonged to you. My accounts. My belongings. You told her she wasn’t welcome in her childhood home anymore.”
His voice remained remarkably calm.
“And then you told her I had specifically excluded her from my will.”
Grant finally said, “Dad, we thought—”
“No.”
Dad cut him off.
“You didn’t think.”
The word landed heavily.
“You assumed.”
Vanessa started crying.
But Dad wasn’t moved.
“Where are you?” he asked.
Vanessa hesitated.
“At the house.”
“Of course you are.”
Dad leaned back.
“How did you get inside?”
“We have keys.”
“You have keys to the front door.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Dad nodded slowly.
“So you didn’t break in.”
“No.”
“Good.”
He glanced at me.
“That saves me one phone call.”
I had no idea what he meant.
Neither did Vanessa.
“What phone call?” she asked.
“To the sheriff.”
Silence.
Grant immediately became defensive.
“Why would you call the sheriff? We’re your children.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“Exactly.”
He looked at me.
“I’ve spent seventy-four years learning that being related to someone doesn’t make them trustworthy.”
Vanessa’s voice cracked.
“Dad, please.”
Dad didn’t respond.
Instead, he asked a completely different question.
“Did you go into my office?”
Vanessa didn’t answer quickly enough.
Dad’s jaw tightened.
“You did.”
“We were looking for the will.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You were looking for the version of the will you hoped existed.”
Grant muttered something under his breath.
Dad heard it.
“Say it louder.”
“I said we were trying to make sure everything was handled.”
“Before I was even dead?”
Grant didn’t answer.
Dad laughed once.
It wasn’t a happy laugh.
It was the kind of laugh people use when something is so absurd that anger has temporarily run out of words.
“You two are unbelievable.”
Vanessa began crying harder.
“Dad, we were scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“That you were going to leave everything to Natalie.”
Dad looked at me.
I didn’t say anything.
He looked back at the phone.
“And that frightened you enough to kill me before breakfast?”
“Dad!”
“That’s what you did.”
His voice suddenly became colder.
“You didn’t just lie about my death. You planned around it.”
Grant tried to interrupt.
“We didn’t know you were—”
“Alive?”
Dad raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. That part is becoming obvious.”
I almost smiled.
Dad had always been sarcastic when he was angry.
When I was a child, I’d once broken a lamp playing indoor baseball.
He’d stared at the broken lamp for ten seconds before saying, “Well, at least we know the lamp lost.”
This was the same voice.
Only this time, there was no humor behind it.
Vanessa whispered, “Who told you?”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Told me what?”
“That we were coming.”
Dad glanced at me.
Then toward the hallway.
Then back at the phone.
“No one.”
Vanessa was silent.
Dad continued.
“You two made one enormous mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“You assumed I was helpless.”
I saw something in his face I’d never seen before.
Not anger.
Not disappointment.
Something deeper.
Regret.
Not for himself.
For his children.
Dad had spent his entire life believing family could survive almost anything.
Apparently, he’d finally learned there was something it couldn’t survive.
Greed without shame.
Vanessa said, “Dad, if you’re really alive, then we need to talk in person.”
“No.”
“Dad—”
“You need to leave my house.”
“But—”
“Immediately.”
Grant shouted, “You can’t kick us out!”
Dad smiled.
“I can.”
“You said the house would go to us!”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“But the papers—”
“What papers?”
Grant stopped.
Dad leaned forward.
“The ones you found?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
His eyes met mine.
“Because those aren’t the documents I changed yesterday.”
Vanessa’s voice trembled.
“What did you change?”
Dad didn’t answer.
