The call came on a Tuesday afternoon when I was at my weakest—curled beneath a weighted blanket, fighting the worst flu I’d had in years. Every muscle ached, my throat felt like sandpaper, and my thoughts moved through thick fog. When my phone buzzed for the third time, I finally reached for it with trembling fingers.
“Hannah,” my brother Andrew’s voice dripped with manufactured cheerfulness. “Big news. Mom and I are in the area. We’re swinging by the farmhouse in twenty minutes. We have some legal papers to go over with you.”
I blinked at the ceiling, confusion cutting through my fever. “Andrew, what are you talking about? I’m sick.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Just be there. We’re bringing someone to help streamline this whole inheritance thing. It’s for the best.” The line went dead before I could respond.
A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with my illness. The farmhouse. My grandparents’ farmhouse. The five-million-dollar Victorian property I’d inherited six months ago—the one I’d nearly bankrupted myself to save.
I forced myself upright, head spinning. As an estate appraiser, I knew property law better than most attorneys. When my grandparents died, they’d left me everything in their will—a beautiful gesture that came with a crushing reality. The farmhouse wasn’t just a five-million-dollar asset. It was drowning in reverse mortgages, back taxes, and liens that would’ve seen it seized within a month.
My mother Margaret and brother Andrew had wanted nothing to do with it. “It’s a money pit, Hannah,” my mother had said, waving a dismissive hand. “Let the bank take it.”
Andrew had been more blunt. “You’re the appraiser. You figure it out.”
So I did. I liquidated my retirement accounts, took personal loans, and spent eight months in probate court satisfying every creditor. I used every ounce of professional knowledge I possessed to navigate the legal labyrinth. When the clean deed arrived six months ago—Hannah M. Gable, sole owner—I’d cried with relief.
I hadn’t told them. I’d simply continued restoring the house room by room, pouring my heart into the place where I’d spent every childhood summer learning about hard work and integrity from my grandparents.
Now they were coming with “legal papers.”
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