Chapter 4 – The Reading

Arthur passed away peacefully the following spring, in the farmhouse he’d lived in his entire life, with Daniel at his side through the final difficult weeks, a presence Claire and Grant, despite increasing their visits somewhat during the decline, had never quite matched.

The will’s reading took place in the same attorney’s office where it had been drafted, Claire and Grant arriving with the confident expectation of a straightforward division of assets, entirely unprepared for what the document actually contained.

“The farm, in its entirety, including all six hundred acres, farm equipment, and outbuildings,” the attorney read, “is left to Daniel Kane, in recognition of thirty-one years of dedicated work and loyalty that exceeded any reasonable expectation of employment.”

Grant’s face went through the particular rapid transformation of someone recalculating an inheritance he’d already mentally spent. “That has to be a mistake. He’s an employee. We’re his actual children.”

“It’s not a mistake,” the attorney said calmly, anticipating exactly this reaction. “Your father prepared this will carefully, with full documentation of his mental capacity at the time of signing, specifically anticipating a challenge along these lines.”

Claire, quieter than her brother but equally stunned, asked the question that, in some ways, mattered more than the legal specifics. “Did he really want this? Or did Daniel somehow convince him to cut us out?”