***
After the service, a man approached me.
“Are you Kylie?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Thomas, Arthur’s lawyer. He requested your presence at the will reading this afternoon at my office at 3 p.m.”
I frowned. “Are you sure?”
Thomas gave a small nod. “Very.”
I didn’t understand why, but I showed up anyway.
***
“Are you sure?”
We sat at a long table in Thomas’s office that afternoon.
Arthur’s children sat across from me.
Claire leaned toward Daniel. “Who is she?”
“No idea,” he muttered.
I pretended not to hear.
Thomas sat at the head of the table. “Arthur left specific instructions via a written will and a recording. Let’s listen to what he had to say.”
The lawyer pressed play on a recorder, and Arthur’s voice filled the room.
“Who is she?”
“This is Arthur, and I want to be clear that I didn’t choose Kylie because of her kindness. Years ago… before she ever brought me cooked dinner… I saw her sitting on her front steps after her husband left her for another woman. Middle of the night. No lights on. Seven kids asleep inside.”
The room tightened.
Claire frowned. “What is this?”
I remembered that night.
I saw her sitting on her front steps.
“She sat there for a long time,” Arthur continued, “as if she were trying to figure out how she was going to survive. I watched from my window and didn’t see weakness. I saw someone who refused to quit. And I knew then… if I ever had to trust someone, it would be you.”
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