**THE MISSING WILL**
Dad always favored her. Always. Even after she ran off with that… that *artist*. I told him she was no good, that she only wanted his money. He wouldn’t listen. “Blood is thicker than water,” he’d say, patting my hand like I was some simpleton.
Now, the lawyer says the will is missing. Poof. Vanished. Like she vanished all those years ago. I swear, I saw him hiding something in the attic last week, wrapped in an old tea towel. Said he was just “sorting things out.”
I’m going up there now. I need to find that document. Before she does.
⬇️
The attic air hung thick with dust motes dancing in the lone shaft of sunlight. Each creak of the floorboards echoed in the oppressive silence, a soundtrack to my simmering rage. My brother, Daniel, had always been the golden boy, the one Dad had showered with praise and opportunities. Now, he was probably hiding the will, ensuring his undeserved inheritance. The injustice choked me.
My fingers traced the spines of dusty photo albums, pausing at a faded picture of Dad and me, aged seven, beaming at a county fair. The memory, once cherished, now felt like a cruel joke.
Then, I saw it – a glint of something metallic beneath a pile of moth-eaten blankets. My heart hammered. It wasn’t the will. It was a small, ornate music box, the kind Dad always treasured. As I lifted it, a tiny, tinkling melody spilled out, a mournful waltz. Inside, nestled amongst the gears, was a folded piece of parchment – a letter, not a will.
My breath hitched. It was Dad’s handwriting, shaky but unmistakable. He’d written it just weeks before his death. The words blurred through my tears, but the gist was clear: he’d disinherited Daniel. He’d finally seen through his charm, his hollow promises. Everything Daniel had possessed, every penny, had come from the sale of a painting he’d kept hidden for years – a masterpiece by the very artist my sister had run off with.
A sudden noise startled me. Daniel stood in the doorway, his face ashen. He’d heard the music.
“You found it,” he whispered, his voice cracking. He didn’t look angry, just utterly defeated. “I… I didn’t mean to steal anything. I just… I needed the money.”
“For what?” I asked, my voice a raw whisper.
He confessed then, the words tumbling out in a rush. He hadn’t spent the money on luxury cars or extravagant vacations. He’d been secretly funding his sister’s failing career, helping her keep afloat as she struggled in a remote village in the Himalayas, trying to rekindle her artistic passion while battling a debilitating illness. The painting’s sale had barely covered the costs of her life-saving treatment.
The letter fell from my trembling hands. The anger drained away, replaced by a tidal wave of something far more complex. It wasn’t just resentment at Dad’s favoritism, it was the burden of a carefully constructed narrative crumbling before my eyes.
Daniel, the selfish, entitled brother, had become a clandestine guardian angel, sacrificing everything to save a sister I thought had abandoned us.
In the dusty attic, under the fading sunlight, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt… understood. The will might have been missing, but the truth, fragile and bittersweet, had finally been revealed. The inheritance, however, remained unclaimed. The choice of what to do with the painting – and the money it represented – hung heavy in the air, a new and unexpected conflict to face. The question wasn’t who deserved the inheritance; it was whether the family, fractured and bruised, could ever truly be whole again.