Chapter 8 - The Third Granddaughter
Her name was Anna Mercer.
She was twenty-nine.
Dad’s daughter.
But not my mother’s.
I stared at Samuel.
“Dad had another child?”
“Apparently.”
“Does Mom know?”
“I don’t know.”
Chloe looked sick.
“Where is she?”
Samuel had already found an address.
Anna lived four hours away and worked as an elementary-school librarian.
No mansion.
No trust fund.
No evidence she knew anything about the Mercer fortune.
I didn’t want attorneys ambushing her.
So I wrote her a letter.
She called two days later.
Her first words were:
“I don’t want your money.”
Not hello.
Not who are you.
Just that.
“I didn’t call about money.”
“You’re Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
There was silence.
“I’ve seen you in the news.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Your face…”
“It’s healing.”
Another silence.
Then she whispered:
“He did that?”
“Yes.”
Anna agreed to meet.
When she arrived, the resemblance was unmistakable.
Dad’s eyes.
Grandmother’s chin.
She carried an old photograph of Dad with her mother.
“My mother never asked him for anything,” she said. “He sent money until I was five. Then it stopped.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Once.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“What happened?”
“He told me never to contact his family.”
Chloe covered her mouth.
Anna looked at her.
“You must be Chloe.”
“Yes.”
“The favorite daughter.”
Chloe gave a bitter laugh.
“That story is more complicated than it looks.”
Anna listened while Samuel explained the trust.
Then she pushed the papers away.
“I don’t want to compete with either of you.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
That was the moment Grandmother’s plan finally made complete sense.
The trust was not designed to make granddaughters compete.
It was designed to punish anyone who tried to force them to.
Dad had spent his entire life misunderstanding his own mother.
Anna agreed to provide documents establishing her identity.
When Dad learned she had appeared, he exploded.
According to his attorney, he accused me of manufacturing a fake sister to steal his inheritance.
DNA testing ended that argument.
Anna was our half sister.
Mother knew.
She admitted it during a deposition.
Not only had she known, she had helped Dad conceal Anna’s existence from Grandmother’s later estate administrators.
That revelation fractured what remained of my parents’ alliance.
Mom blamed Dad.
Dad blamed Mom.
Their united front collapsed.
Chloe watched the news reports and whispered:
“They’re doing to each other what they did to us.”
She was right.
I turned off the television.
We didn’t need to watch.
The truth was doing enough.
But Anna had one more surprise.
Her mother had died six years earlier.
Before she died, she gave Anna a sealed envelope from Grandmother.
Anna had never opened it because the outside said:
Open only when all three girls are together.
She placed it on my dining table.
Chloe sat beside me.
Anna took the third chair.
Three granddaughters.
Three women who had been kept apart.
I broke the seal.
May you like
Inside was Grandmother’s final letter.
And its first sentence changed the meaning of the inheritance completely.
