Hello beautiful ones, I am writing this post to partake in another interesting challenge Wordsmiths Fiction Week 4.

The estate is to be divided equally among my three children.

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Julie stared at the folder as if it might erase itself. Three children. The room shrank around her. Her brother Michael sat frozen too, jaw clenched, eyes darting as though trying to find a way out.

“Who the hell is Jeremy Cates?” he muttered.

No one answered.

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Three weeks later, they found Jeremy. He stood at the back of a run-down postal office in Ohio, collecting mail in a coat two sizes too big. His beard was scraggly, eyes sharp with pain disguised as weariness.

Julie introduced herself.

“I figured he’d send one of you,” Jeremy said. “You got the letter?”

She nodded, holding it like it was broken glass. “We wanted to talk. About the estate.”

Jeremy gave a bitter laugh. “He really was a piece of work.”

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They sat in a diner. Cold coffee. Quiet tension.

“What did he tell you about me?” Jeremy asked.

“Nothing,” Julie admitted. “He didn’t talk about the past. Not even to us.”

Jeremy’s jaw tensed. “He told my mom I was a mistake. That he had a real family.”

Julie’s heart caved.

“Do you want the inheritance?”

“I want him to suffer,” Jeremy said quietly. “But he’s already dead.”

Julie swallowed. “Then what do you want now?”

His gaze hardened. “I want you to feel what I felt. You had his love. I got his silence.”

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Michael didn’t take it well.

“So what, he wants revenge?” Michael scoffed. “We barely knew Dad ourselves.”

Julie wasn’t angry. She was haunted. Jeremy wasn’t wrong.

They had photos, birthdays, and college tuition.

Jeremy had an absence, and a name spoken like a stain.

She couldn’t shake the image of a child peeking through a window, just to hear his father play violin.

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She went back.

Jeremy was outside his trailer, staring at dying cornstalks.

“Why are you here again?” he asked.

“To give you what he never did. Not money. Just... acknowledgement.”

Jeremy turned slowly. “What makes you think I want that from you?”

“Because I’m your sister. And I want to know my brother.”

His face twitched. Grief flickered. But he said nothing.

And yet, he didn’t turn her away.

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It took time.

Julie visited. Michael joined reluctantly. They brought photos. Told stories.

And Jeremy listened.

One day, he showed them a picture—black and white, creased, old.

“This was the last time I saw him. I was seven.”

Julie reached for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Jeremy nodded. “I know.”

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Six months later, they stood outside the estate. Ivy-covered stone. Cracked windows. A family’s ruins.

Michael reached for the key.

Jeremy stopped him. “I want one thing.”

He led them to the attic.
There, beneath the dust, was the violin.

“He used to play this when he was nervous. I’d stand outside the window... just to hear.”

Michael handed it to him. “It’s yours.”

Jeremy took it, his hands shaking.

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They signed the papers.

Three shares. No ghosts. No revenge.

Only three people were trying to make sense of what they were given.

As they locked up, Jeremy paused.

“You know,” he said, “I thought I wanted you to suffer. But it was your love... that melted it.”

Julie smiled. “Sometimes love is louder than silence.”

And for the first time, Jeremy believed it.

THE END

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I want to invite @sahmie @pea07 @aminasafdar to join this challenge.

Thank you for reading.

All image generated using DALL-E

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