She was removed from control of the trust.

Three months later, the farmhouse transfer to me was finalized.

But the biggest surprise came after the legal chaos settled.

I turned twenty-five the following spring.

Grandpa asked Ava and me to meet him at the farmhouse.

The property looked transformed.

Fresh paint.

A repaired porch.

New windows.

Ava had spent months helping restore it.

Not because I asked her.

Because, as she put it, she needed to return something that couldn’t fit inside an envelope.

We stood beneath the oak tree where my biological mother, Caroline, had apparently played as a child.

Grandpa handed me one final box.

Inside were photographs.

Caroline at sixteen.

Caroline holding her pregnant stomach.

Caroline laughing beside a lake.

Under the photographs rested another legal document.

I frowned.

“What’s this?”

Grandpa smiled.

“The final page of your grandmother’s trust.”

I read it.

Then looked at Ava.