In the days that followed, I found myself replaying the final months of my stepmom’s life. I thought of the quiet mornings when I would sit beside her, brushing her hair even though she couldn’t open her eyes; of the afternoons when nurses and I would reposition her carefully, speaking to her as if she could still hear us—because I believed, in some deep way, she could. I remembered the warmth of her hand in mine the night she passed. I never cared about the inheritance because caring for her had been an act of love, not obligation. But I also knew her daughter’s absence had hurt her, even if she never spoke of it directly. Perhaps the will had been her final, imperfect attempt to mend something between them.

Her daughter eventually asked to meet. When she arrived, she looked smaller somehow—less sure, less hardened. She apologized, slowly at first, then all at once, the way people do when they’ve held too much inside. She admitted she couldn’t bear to see her mother so helpless, that she hadn’t been able to face the decline. She said she envied me—not the inheritance she’d imagined I wanted, but the closeness her mother and I had formed. I told her I didn’t resent her. Grief doesn’t come with a handbook, and fear makes strangers of us all. We spent hours talking, sorting through papers, and even laughing softly at old photos we found tucked into drawers, reminders that life had once been full and bright.