“No. But they could pressure you. Guilt you. Ask you to invest. Ask you to loan. Ask you to sign. Ask you to prove loyalty.”
I thought of my father’s speech. Family loyalty. The words felt filthy now.
“Why didn’t Grandpa tell me?”
“Because you were seventeen,” Nora said gently. “And because he was ill. He wanted your last months with him to belong to you, not become a financial briefing.”
I looked down at the papers. My hands were trembling, but not from fear this time.
“What happens now?”
“That depends partly on them.”
They made their choice within a month.
My parents filed a petition challenging the trust.
Their argument was offensively simple: I had been unduly influenced by Nora Whitman, emotionally unstable after my grandfather’s death, and unable to understand the legal consequences of what I had signed on my birthday.
My mother signed an affidavit claiming I had “always been impulsive” and “easily manipulated by older authority figures.” My father claimed he had only wanted to “guide” my inheritance responsibly.
