I was numb. I’d spent years caring for Grandma—doctor visits, repairs, late-night talks—yet at the will reading, I got nothing. My mom said maybe Grandma forgot. I didn’t believe that for a second.
Four days later, Aunt Linda came to my door with a small wooden box. Grandma had told her to give it to me only after the will. Inside were dozens of unsent letters addressed to me, and a deed—not to Grandma’s house, but to a farmhouse in Montana. There was also a photo of a woman holding a baby who looked exactly like me. On the back: “Your real mother. The family can never know.”
I learned the truth through the letters. My “mom” was actually my aunt. My real mother, Eleanor, had been disowned for loving the wrong man. After my father died, she gave me to Grandma to keep me safe and planned to come back for me—but her letters were intercepted. She died alone, believing her family abandoned her.
The Montana house was meant for me. It was protected from my greedy uncle, who’d drained Grandma dry.
I quit my job and drove west. The house was still there—preserved like a time capsule. In my mother’s room, I found her journals and learned she never stopped loving or saving for me.
Then a neighbor arrived. His father had cared for my mother until she died. He’d kept her savings—and added to it for decades. The money was in my name.
When my uncle showed up, furious and claiming the property, he had no proof and no power. He left defeated.
I came looking for an inheritance.
I found the truth, my real home, and proof that I had always been loved.