I had known about the neighbor, Mr. Kern, in a vague way, as the old man who used to give out king-size candy bars on Halloween, but I never knew about the money.Zack latched onto the only part he cared about.

“Okay, fine, trust account,” he said. “So how much is in it? Like, realistically?”

Mr. Harper consulted a sheet of paper, though I suspected he already knew the numbers by heart.

“As of last quarter, the balance is approximately $2.8 million,” he said.

Zack made a horrible strangled noise, like someone had punched the air out of him.

“She gave her the trust?” he yelled, pointing at me. “No way. No way. I was supposed to get the big stuff. Grandma told me I was special.”

Bailey shifted, his head in my lap, his eyes moving between us like he was tracking a tennis match.

I just stared at the tag in my fingers, because if I looked up, I was afraid I would either laugh or scream.

Mr. Harper cleared his throat yet again and slid a folded note across the table toward Zack.”Your grandmother left you a personal message, Zack,” he said.Zack snatched it up like it might change everything.

He tore it open, eyes darting over the handwriting I knew so well.

I watched his face go from furious red to pale, to something like stunned humiliation.

He crumpled the paper in his fist, then slammed it onto the table so hard Bailey flinched.It slid toward me, and I could not help reading it.

It said, in Grandma’s looping script:

“My darling boy, you always reached for the biggest prize on the shelf. But the biggest prizes belong to people with the biggest hearts. Real wealth is love that does not keep score. I hope one day you understand this. Love, Grandma.”

Zack shoved his chair back so hard it scraped the floor.

“She screwed me,” he shouted. “She lied to me my whole life. I won’t accept this. I’ll contest the will. I’ll make sure you don’t see a cent.”He stormed out of the office, slamming the door so hard one of the certificates on the wall tilted.

The silence after he left felt huge.

Bailey exhaled, almost like a sigh of relief, and rested his head on my knee.

I sat there staring at the little metal tag, at the bank logo, at the numbers that apparently meant I was now a millionaire who still drove a 10-year-old car with a cracked bumper.

“I don’t understand,” I said finally. “Why would she give me all of that and leave Zack with only the house money and things?”

Mr. Harper sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose the way people do when they’re tired down to their bones.

“Your grandmother came to see me three years ago,” he said. “She talked about you bringing her to appointments, helping with groceries, fixing her television, sitting with her when she was scared. She said you never asked for anything, never hinted around gifts or money.””I would have done those things even if she left me absolutely nothing,” I whispered.

He nodded. “She knew that. That was exactly why she trusted you with the bigger responsibility. In her mind, this trust is not a lottery ticket. It’s a tool. She believed you would use it well.”

My eyes burned again, but this time it was a different kind of tears, not only grief, but this aching, heavy gratitude mixed with terror.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I admitted. “I work in claims. I barely manage my own budget most months.”Mr. Harper smiled. “Then your first step is to hire a good financial planner, not a sports car,” he said. “Your grandmother also left instructions that Bailey is to be cared for using this money if needed. She told me, and I quote, that the dog retires in style.”That made me laugh for the first time in weeks, this weird choked laugh that broke into a sob.

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