“The Osage County property. Your mother inherited it from her grandparents. It’s been in the Caldwell family since 1947.”
Marcus leaned back slowly, and I watched his face move through stages — confusion, then calculation, then something that settled into contempt. “A farm. That’s it? Mom left him a falling-down house and eight hundred acres of nothing?”
He laughed. Short and ugly.
Helen’s expression didn’t change. “The will is very clear. Your mother was specific about the distribution.”
“Specific,” Marcus repeated, like the word itself offended him. He looked at me. “Dad, you’re sixty-eight years old. You’re going to live on a falling-down shack in the middle of nowhere?”
“I haven’t seen it yet,” I said.
Helen slid a cream-colored envelope across the table. Jenny’s handwriting on the front.
Sam — Open at the farm. Trust me.
I picked it up. My hands weren’t entirely steady.
“There is one more thing,” Helen said. “Your wife left instructions that this sealed letter be opened at the property. Not before.”
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