“Why?”
“Because shortly before his death, someone contacted him claiming both children had been conceived during his first wife’s affair.”
Lenora whispered:
“They were his children.”
Talia slowly shook her head.
“No.”
The room became completely silent.
I stared at the papers.
“What are you saying?”
“Neither Thaddius nor Marisol was biologically related to Enoch Bromel.”
My skin prickled.
“But they inherited through him.”
“Not exactly.”
Talia unfolded the codicil.
Enoch’s trust had been constructed with language no one had paid much attention to because everyone assumed Thad and Marisol were his biological children.
Property would ultimately descend to:
“my issue by blood, or, failing such issue, the lawful lineal descendants of my wife, Lenora.”
Thad and Marisol were specifically allowed income distributions while Lenora lived.
But ownership after her death depended on biological descent.
Talia looked stunned.
“Enoch knew.”
Lenora whispered, “Why didn’t he tell them?”
The answer was in the letter.
Talia read aloud.
“Children should not be punished for the sins surrounding their births. I have raised Thaddius and Marisol as mine, and while I live, they shall never hear otherwise from me.”
Lenora began crying.
Talia continued.
“But inheritance is not merely affection. It is stewardship. Should either child knowingly conceal Lenora’s lost bloodline in order to seize what would otherwise belong to her descendants, then they will have demonstrated precisely why stewardship must pass elsewhere.”
My hands went numb.
He had predicted it.
Not the kidney.
Not me.
But the choice.
Talia turned to the final paragraph.
Her voice became quieter.
“If this letter has been opened, then greed has answered the question I lacked the cruelty to ask.”
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Then I noticed something.
Another name was typed beneath Enoch’s signature.
