All of those were just details. But the lawyer coming to my house to read his will was closing his life. There was nothing left after that. Everything he'd ever done or accomplished was now a legacy. Everything he owned was now… mine.
Except for a few specific things he left to Eric, the entire estate came to me once probate went through.
I didn't understand what the lawyer was saying when he told me that. It had to be a mistake, or I just misunderstood him. But he repeated it. He showed me the document, signed by a fully stable and functional version of Greg Bailey.
The envelope crackles under my finger as I slip it under the flap to take out the sheaf of paper inside. I've been expecting this. The lawyer told me it could take months for probate to go through, but as the months slipped further and further toward a year, I thought maybe he figured out it was a mistake. There had to be someone else. But the paper in my hands now tells me that's not the case.
"The probate is finished," I read to Sam. "The bank will transfer the funds into my account within the week, and I can claim the physical assets at my convenience." Breath streams out of my lungs as I read the paper again. "It just still feels so strange."
"His will was very clear," Sam says. "You read it yourself."
"I know," I sigh, nodding. "But that doesn't mean I understand it."
"You were important to him."
"We broke up."
"You know why."
It feels like a lifetime ago that Greg ended our relationship and then disappeared so soon after. For a long time, I wondered what happened to make him suddenly break up with me. I wouldn't let myself feel the relief that came along with the end of the relationship because nobody knew what happened to Greg. It didn't feel right to be something close to happy that the relationship was gone when he was, too. But over time, I allowed the honesty to come and the relief to settle in.
Him disappearing didn't change the time we spent together, or that I still considered him a friend. I could worry about him and fear for what might be happening to him while also being true to the reality that we weren't right for each other. That we never were.
When I found out what happened to him, that the uncle I never knew I had abducted him under false pretenses, I finally understood why a relationship that seemed to be moving along steadily ended so abruptly.
“It doesn't feel right,” I reiterate.
“He knew the choice he made. You and Eric were the closest thing he had to family. When he first put his will together, he probably thought he was providing for his future wife. That's the truth. But he didn't have it changed. He didn't put in a specification. Even after waking up, he didn't try to change it. He wanted to make sure if anything happened to him, you would be taken care of. It's what he wanted,” Sam tells me.
I reach across the table and stroke his cheek.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what?" he asks.
"Just thank you."
After that night in October, I haven't closed my bedroom window. Rain, snow, dipping temperatures. It has stayed open, letting me breathe. It brings in bitingly cold air as I slip out from under the comforter and tuck my feet into my slippers. Grabbing Sam's bathrobe from where he left it draped across the end of the bed, I shrug into it and wrap it tight around me. He went to sleep hours ago, but I imagine I can still feel some of his warmth in the fibers, taking away some of the chill.
Sleeplessness brings me into the office, and I sit down at the desk, opening my laptop. My fingers click over the keyboard to access the database. I don't check it as often now as I used to, but I can't stay away from it tonight. The chewing, nagging feeling in the base of my stomach makes me bring it up and read through the information carefully.
Behind me, I hear Sam walk into the office. His arms wrap around me, and he kisses my cheek.
"They're still there," he whispers. "Both of them are still there."
The prison information comes up, showing me Jonah’s and Anson's mugshots and identification numbers.
I nod.
"I know."
Chapter Three
“You've finished renovating the room in your attic?” my therapist asks.
“Yes,” I tell her.
“How does that make you feel?” she asks.
My eyes slide over to her, and she holds up her hands as she glances down at the notes in her lap and shakes her head slightly.
“Sorry,” she says. “I know you hate that question.”
“Does anyone actually like it? Have you ever had a patient come in for therapy and genuinely feel better after you ask them how it makes them feel to go through the worst experiences of their lives?”
She has her mouth open like she's going to answer, then closes it and gives a slight shrug.
“Different strategies work for different patients. Sometimes, no, they don’t. But sometimes patients need to actively confront and process whatever it is that’s troubling them so that they can regain a sense of normalcy with themselves.”
“But sometimes you just make them re-experience whatever trauma they had in the first place?”
She sighs but doesn’t say anything.
“That's kind of ironic when you think about it, isn't it?”
She nods. “So, let me ask it another way. Did renovating that room do for you whatever it was that you wanted it to do?”
“I think so. Knowing all the information and reminders of my uncle were kept in there for so many years was driving me up a wall. It felt like there was a part of my house that wasn't really mine. I'll always think of that house as belonging to my grandparents, but this is different. It's like that room was completely separate
