My stepmother called me at the end of the day, her voice so smug I could practically hear the smile on her lips, and told me that from now on I would never be allowed to set foot in the family beach house again because she had already changed every lock.

At the very bottom I found something I had never seen before. It was a sealed envelope with my name on the front in my mother’s handwriting.

“Audrey, if Victoria has tried to take the house, open this with Lydia,” the note read. My knees nearly gave out as I held the thick cream paper.

“Let’s take that inside to the kitchen,” Lydia suggested. We returned to the house because the kitchen had the best light and felt like the room where truth belonged.

Victoria tried to object one last time. “This is absurd because you are not opening private correspondence in front of strangers,” she said.

Lydia looked at the handwriting and shook her head. “It is addressed to my client with specific instructions,” Lydia noted.

“I can assure you that your approval is not a legal prerequisite for us,” she added. I sat down at the table and broke the seal with a shaking finger.

Inside were several pages written in my mother’s steady hand. “Audrey, if you are reading this, then Victoria has finally done exactly what I believed she would do,” the letter began.

“I am sorry that I may not be here to stand in the doorway and stop her myself,” it continued. My vision blurred with tears as I kept reading.