My Aunt Patricia hosted the first family dinner since the funeral, the kind of gathering that exists more out of obligation than desire. I almost didn’t go. I went anyway, because I knew Grace would use my absence as proof that I was the one tearing the family apart.
She was already there when I arrived, laughing at something my cousin said, looking so unbothered that for a moment I wondered if I’d imagined the entire confrontation on her porch.
“Emily,” Aunt Patricia said, pulling me into a hug that felt more like an ambush. “I heard there’s been some tension. Whatever it is, I hope you two can work it out. Your mother would be devastated to see her girls fighting.”
“My mother would be devastated to know Grace forged her way through a legal document,” I said, quiet enough that only Patricia heard it.
Her face flickered with something — not quite surprise. She’d known. Or Grace had already given her version of events.
Dinner was strained. Grace kept the conversation light, deflecting any mention of the house, smiling too widely whenever someone brought up Mom. Marcus barely spoke, pushing food around his plate. It was my cousin Danny, oblivious to the tension, who finally asked the question everyone else was avoiding.
“Hey, is it true you guys sold Grandma’s house? How’d that go?”
The table went silent.
Grace’s smile didn’t waver, but her eyes found mine, pleading.
“It went fine,” she said. “Just some paperwork stuff to sort out.”
“It went fine for you,” I said, “because you kept the money.”
“Emily,” Grace hissed.
“No. I’m done pretending this is a misunderstanding at every family dinner for the next year. Grace forged my signature on the deed. She and Marcus took my half of the inheritance to bail out their restaurant, and none of you seem to think that’s worth mentioning.”
The table erupted — Aunt Patricia asking Grace if it was true, my cousin looking mortified he’d asked, Marcus standing up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor.
“You didn’t have to do that here,” Grace said, her composure finally cracking, tears filling her eyes in a way that used to make me rush to comfort her when we were kids.
“I didn’t have to. But you didn’t have to forge my name either, and here we are.”
I left before dessert. My father caught me at the door.
“That wasn’t easy,” he said. “But I think it needed to happen.”
It was the closest thing to support he’d given me since this started.