Andre pulled out the chair across from his mother and sat down slowly.

James stayed by the window.

He didn't leave, but he didn't come closer either.

"Her name was Rose," Diane said.

"Walter's mother.

Your grandmother on his side.

You never met her.

We made sure of that."

"Why?"

"Because of what happened to her.

Because of what your grandfather — Walter's father — did to her before he d*ed." She paused.

"And because of what he left behind when he went."

"What did he leave behind?"

Diane folded her hands on the table.

"A house.

Land.

Money that had been in that family for three generations.

And a will that cut Rose out of all of it."

Andre leaned forward.

"He cut his own wife out of the will?"

"He did.

Signed it two weeks before he passed.

Left everything to his brother's side of the family.

People Rose barely knew." She shook her head slowly.

"Rose fought it.

Hired a lawyer.

Spent years trying to prove the will wasn't right — that he hadn't been in his right mind when he signed it, or that someone had pressured him."

"Had they?"

Diane looked at him steadily.

"That's what Walter believes.

That's what he's been trying to prove."

James made a sound from across the room.

Not quite a laugh.

Something harder.

"And now he's d*ing," James said, "so suddenly he wants to bring our son into it."

"He's not trying to bring me into anything," Andre said.

"He's trying to tell me the truth."

"He's trying to use you."

"You don't know that."

"I know men like that." James turned from the window.

"I know what it looks like when somebody reaches out after twenty-something years because they need something.

And I know what it does to a person when they find out the reaching out wasn't really about them at all."

The kitchen went quiet again.

Andre looked at his mother.

"Is that what you think?

That he's using me?"

Diane was slow to answer.

"I think Walter has always believed what he believes.

I think the situation with Rose's estate is real.

I think he genuinely wants you to know." She pressed her lips together.

"I also think the timing is not an accident."

"So there's money involved."

"There may be.

If the original will can be challenged successfully — if someone can prove what Walter thinks happened — then Rose's estate would be redistributed.

And as Walter's son, you would be a legal heir."

Andre sat back in his chair.

The refrigerator hummed.

Outside, a car passed slowly down the street.

"How much are we talking about?" he said.

"Andre—"

"Mom.

How much?"

She looked at her hands again.

"The house alone, back then, was worth close to four hundred thousand dollars.

The land attached to it was more.

And that was thirty years ago."

Andre didn't say anything for a moment.

"Where is Walter now?"

"The letter has a phone number at the bottom," Diane said.

"He's in Raleigh.

Has been for years."

"And Rose?"

Diane's expression shifted.

Just slightly.

Just enough.

"Rose passed four years ago," she said.

"She never got the house back.

She d*ed in a rented room in a building she hated, with almost nothing to her name."

Andre felt something move through him that he didn't have a word for yet.

"And the people who took it from her," he said.

"Where are they?"

Diane looked at James.

James looked at the floor.

"That," Diane said carefully, "is the part of the story Walter needs to tell you himself."

Andre picked up the letter again.

He read the phone number at the bottom three times until he had it memorized.

"I'm calling him," he said.

"Andre, just wait—"

"I'm not waiting." He stood up.

"I've been waiting my whole life without knowing I was waiting.

I'm done."

He picked up his phone from the counter where he'd set it when he walked in.

It rang twice before someone answered.

The voice on the other end was older than Andre expected.

Quieter.

And unmistakably familiar in a way that had nothing to do with memory.

"Andre?" the man said.

Andre's hand tightened around the phone.

"Yeah," he said.

"It's me."

A long pause.

Then: "There's something I need to tell you before we go any further.

Something about the man who has your grandmother's house right now." Another pause.

"He knows I've been looking for you.

And he's not going to be happy that I found you."