“This is a joke, right?” my brother David asked, his voice shaking as he leaned across the polished mahogany conference table.

Mr. Vance, the attorney who had handled my father’s taxes for thirty years, didn’t look up from his papers.

He just adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and let out a heavy, tired sigh.

“I wish it were, David,” Mr. Vance said quietly. “But this is the document that was filed with the probate court. It revokes all prior wills.”

I sat next to David, my hands clasped tightly in my lap to keep them from trembling. Across the table sat our youngest sister, Claire. She was thirty-one, pampered, and currently wearing a brand-new emerald green silk blouse.

She wasn’t looking at us. She was completely focused on filing her nails, the raspy sound of the emery board filling the quiet office.

I felt a cold knot form in my stomach.

According to the document on the table, our father, Arthur Miller, had left his entire $1.2 million estate solely to Claire. The three-bedroom brick house on Oak Street. The two rental properties near the university. All of it.

David, our other sister Sarah, and I were left with absolutely nothing.

“Dad had advanced dementia for three years,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “By the end of September, he couldn’t even recognize his own kitchen in Toledo. He couldn’t sign a birthday card, Mr. Vance. How did he sign a new will on October fourteenth?”

Claire finally stopped filing her nails. She looked up, giving us a slow, unbothered shrug.

“He knew exactly what he wanted,” Claire said smoothly. “He knew you guys were barely visiting him at the care home. He wanted to make sure someone took care of his things.”

Sarah let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “You barely visited him either, Claire. You only showed up when you wanted gas money. I was the one coordinating his nursing care. Ellen was the one doing his laundry.”

Claire just smirked, putting her nail file back into her designer purse. “Well, the papers are signed and notarized. I guess Dad realized who his favorite was in the end.”

I need to back up for a second. My dad was a proud, quiet man who worked for forty-one years at the Jeep assembly plant in Toledo. He was frugal in that classic, old-school Midwestern way.

He drove a faded 1998 Buick LeSabre until the rust ate through the floorboards. He clipped coupons from the Sunday paper, and he refused to go out to eat unless it was a special occasion.