She arrived ten minutes early and chose a table with its back to the wall.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she placed a folder on the table.
“My father wasn’t perfect,” she said. “But he wasn’t stupid. He kept records of everything.”
She opened the folder.
“There were four properties. One was sold in 2019. Another in 2021. Mum told me the estate was mostly the family house and that everything else was complicated. I was twenty when Dad died. I didn’t know what questions to ask.”
“What did you sign?”
“Documents she brought to the kitchen table. She said they were necessary to keep the estate from getting stuck in court. She said she’d explain everything later.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
Saoirse looked down at the folder.
“Every time I asked, she said I was grieving. Or that I was being greedy. Or that my brother was trying to help me, and I should be grateful.”
