I didn’t cry at the funeral. I thought I would, but when the priest closed his Bible and the coffin was lowered, all I felt was numbness. Grief hovered like a fog, but it didn’t touch me. Not yet. I thought the hardest part was saying goodbye to my father. But the hardest part came later—when the will was read, and his words carved through my chest like a blade.
The family business was his pride. He built it from nothing, brick by brick, sweat dripping from his brow in those early days. I grew up in it—paper stacks for forts, ink-stained fingers from the printing press, the smell of hot oil and fresh cut wood clinging to my hair. He used to say, “One day this will be yours, Anna. You’ll keep it alive after I’m gone.” He’d said it so often I never questioned it. It was an unspoken promise, part of the very fabric of our family.
So when we gathered in the lawyer’s office—me, my brother, my mother, and a few distant relatives—I expected formality. The legal tying of knots that were already bound. Instead, the lawyer’s voice broke something in me. “To my beloved daughter, Anna, I leave the house and the savings account. To my wife, the vineyard in the south. And to my son, Mark, I leave full ownership of the business.”
The room fell silent. My ears buzzed. I thought maybe I’d misheard. I whispered, “What?”
The lawyer glanced at me, uncomfortable. “It’s all here. He transferred the business, in its entirety, to your brother.”
I turned to Mark. He didn’t look shocked. His lips curled into a thin line that wasn’t quite a smile, wasn’t quite guilt. He avoided my eyes.
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “No, that can’t be right. Dad told me—he told me it would be mine. He said—he said I was the one—”
Mark finally looked at me. “Maybe you just heard what you wanted, Anna.” His voice was calm, too calm, like he’d rehearsed it.
“Don’t,” I snapped. My chair scraped against the floor as I stood. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t even care about the business. You left three years ago! You said you hated it!”
The lawyer cleared his throat awkwardly. “There is more… a letter addressed to you, Anna.” He slid an envelope across the polished wood table. My name on the front. My father’s handwriting.
My hands shook as I tore it open.
My Anna, it began. If you are reading this, then I am gone, and you must know why I made the choice I did. You were always the heart of the business. But sometimes the heart isn’t enough. You love too deeply, trust too easily. Mark has the ruthlessness it needs to survive. The business world is not kind. I could not risk leaving it in hands that would forgive betrayal. You have always forgiven too much.
The words blurred. My chest tightened. “Forgive too much”? That was his reason? That was his excuse?
Mark leaned back in his chair, arms folded. His eyes gleamed with something I couldn’t name—satisfaction, triumph, maybe even pity. “Dad knew I could handle it,” he said simply.
I snapped my head toward him. “Handle it? You stole from him! Do you remember that? You drained money from the accounts. I covered for you. I fixed it so he wouldn’t find out. That was betrayal. And he left it to you?”
Mark’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t deny it. He didn’t have to. My father knew, and he forgave him. Forgave him and rewarded him.
The lawyer shifted uncomfortably, closing the folder. “The will is final. Unless you wish to contest it, these are the instructions your father left.”
Contest it. The thought twisted in me like a knife. I could fight. I could drag Mark through court, claw for what I believed was mine. But the letter still burned in my hands, my father’s words pressing into me like a wound. You forgive too much.
For a moment, I hated him. Hated my father for leaving me with this betrayal, hated my brother for wearing that smug expression, hated myself for still clinging to the memory of a promise that was never written in ink.
Mark stood, sliding the chair back with a loud scrape. He put a hand on my shoulder—light, patronizing. “It’s done, Anna. Let it go.”
I shoved his hand away. My voice cracked, raw with grief and rage. “I won’t forgive you. Not this time.”
And for the first time in my life, I meant it.
Final Thought
Blood ties don’t always bind. Sometimes the deepest cut comes not from strangers, but from those who should have protected you. My father’s will didn’t just pass down a business—it revealed who he truly believed we were. And maybe the cruelest inheritance was the truth.
