My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

Robert raised a hand as if magnanimity were his to dispense. “No, that’s a fair concern. We should be honest. The mineral rights do complicate matters. But they also create opportunity. Our position is simple. Rather than dragging this through court, we can settle now in a way that benefits everyone.”

Allan opened the portfolio and withdrew a set of documents already tabbed for presentation. Of course he had. Men like him never came to a room without paper designed to make surrender look elegant.

“We’re prepared to offer a generous division,” he said. “One-third to you, Catherine. One-third to Jenna. One-third among the brothers. Everyone exits with security. No prolonged litigation, no ugly publicity, no stress.”

My daughter looked at me expectantly, as if this were common sense and my refusal would be stubbornness rather than self-preservation.

It was such a neat, reasonable theft I almost admired its construction.

“And the western acreage?” I asked.

Allan blinked. “What about it?”

“The rocky land to the west. Included in this division?”

He smiled thinly. “That section has limited practical value.”

So there it was. Not just greed. Selective greed. Greed with a map.

Jenna, still unaware she was standing inside a chessboard, said, “Mom, we don’t need all this. We’re not ranchers. We could sell and walk away from this with more money than either of us would know what to do with.”

Money. There it was at last. Not because she was shallow. My daughter had never been shallow. But because grief had made her crave solid answers, and money at least looked solid. Money translated chaos into numbers. Numbers felt fair even when they weren’t.

“Your father left this property to me,” I said.

Robert smiled in that pitying, elder-statesman way that made my skin crawl. “Out of sentiment, perhaps. Out of confusion. The end of life alters judgment.”

My pulse kicked once, hard.

“My husband was of sound mind.”

“Then why the secrecy?” David asked.

It was the first time he had spoken. His voice was softer than the others’, almost careful, which made the question more dangerous, not less. It let him pose as the thoughtful one. The brother who merely wanted clarity. The brother who could say the hardest thing with no visible aggression at all.

Why the secrecy.