I had believed them.

“What about him?” I asked.

My mother sat on the edge of the visitor chair, gripping her designer handbag with both hands. “Your father updated his will before he died.”

My stomach turned cold. “And?”

She inhaled shakily. “He left you the lake house.”

The words didn’t register at first. “What?”

“The property in Cedar Pines,” Vanessa said quickly. “The one Grandpa built. It’s in your name now.”

My father’s family lake house had been in our family for nearly sixty years. It wasn’t just valuable property. It was the one place in my childhood that had felt peaceful. My father took me fishing there. He taught me to skip stones there. After my parents’ marriage turned bitter, it became a refuge.

My mother had always said it would go to Vanessa because “the younger one appreciates nicer things.”

“You’re lying,” I said.

“I’m not,” Patricia snapped, then caught herself and softened her tone. “The lawyer called this morning. There’s a second clause.”

I already hated where this was going.

“What clause?”

Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears so suddenly I almost laughed. She wasn’t someone who cried without purpose.