My Corporate Lawyer Sister Called Me A “failure” For Being A High School Teacher. Today, Mom’s Will Was Read, And I Inherited $270 Million While She Got Almost Nothing. She’s Furious, But She Doesn’t Know What I Sacrificed. Should I Tell Her The Truth?
From Secrets to Forgiveness
Catherine stood up, walking to the opposite window. We stood on either side of the room, separated by distance and decades of misunderstanding.
“My letter is short,” she said after a long moment.
“She just says she loves me and that she hopes I’ll understand why she made this choice, that I should read your letter if I want to know the full story.”
She turned to face me, mascara streaking her cheeks.
“Will you?”
“I don’t know if I want to. Because if I do, then I have to face what I missed, what I didn’t see, how I judged you for being a teacher when you were actually—”
She stopped, fresh tears coming.
*”God, Robert. All those years I thought I was the good daughter, the successful one, the one who made her proud.”
“You did make her proud. Don’t—”
“Don’t,” her voice was sharp. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I don’t deserve it. I was awful to you for years. I thought you’d wasted your life and I pitied you and I—”
She pressed her hands to her face.
“I’m so sorry.”
I crossed the room and did something I hadn’t done in nearly a decade. I hugged my sister.
She was stiff at first, then she collapsed against me, sobbing into my shoulder like she had when we were children and I’d comfort her after nightmares.
“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
We stood like that for a long time while the rain continued its steady drumming against the windows and the city moved on below us, oblivious to our small drama of guilt and forgiveness playing out twenty-three floors above the street.
A New Foundation of Honesty
Finally, Catherine pulled back, wiping her eyes.
“What happens now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m a high school English teacher who suddenly owns a real estate development corporation worth a quarter of a billion dollars. I’m probably in over my head.”
“You’re not.”
Catherine’s lawyer instincts were reasserting themselves, her voice steadying.
“You kept Mom’s company afloat for eight years while managing her illness and working full-time. You’re more capable than you think. Still, I could use some help. I hear there’s this excellent attorney in Seattle who knows something about corporate law.”
She looked at me, understanding dawning.
“You want me to help you?”
“Mom left me the company, but she left you her knowledge, her connections, her legacy in other ways. We could work together, if you wanted to.”
“After how I treated you?”
“You’re my sister,” I said simply. “And we’ve wasted enough years not talking. I don’t want to waste anymore.”
Catherine nodded slowly.
“Okay. Yes, I’d like that.”
She paused, then added.
“And Robert, the $5 million she left me? I want you to know I don’t need it. I’ve done well. If you want to contest the will, divide things more evenly—”
“No,” I interrupted. “Mom made her choice. She wanted you to have that money. Take it, use it for your kids, for whatever you want. This isn’t about the money anyway.”
“Then what is it about?”
I thought about my mother’s letter, about eight years of secret caregiving, about choices made out of love rather than ambition.
“Truth,” I said finally. “It’s about truth.”
Rebuilding Together
We left the offices together, taking the elevator down in silence. In the lobby, Catherine turned to me.
“I’m going to read your letter. The full one. I need to understand everything. I know. And then I’m going to ask you a million questions about Mom, about her illness, about everything I missed. And you’re going to tell me, even if it’s hard to hear.”
“I will.”
“And Robert,” she reached out and squeezed my hand. “Thank you for taking care of her, for sacrificing so much, for being better than I ever gave you credit for.”
I squeezed back.
“We’ll figure this out together.”
She nodded, then walked toward the parking garage. I watched her go, then turned and made my own way to my aging Honda.
Inside, I sat for a moment, my mother’s letter still clutched in my hand. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.
Through the windshield, I could see the Seattle skyline, the buildings my mother had helped develop, the city that would now be my responsibility in ways I’d never imagined.
