Linda turned to me, stunned. How did you arrange this in an hour? I smiled and told her the truth: I didn’t.
The Man Behind the Estate
An elderly man in a tuxedo approached us, silver-haired and composed. Linda saw him and froze. He smiled at me and said simply, Jessica. I stepped forward and hugged him, thanking him for what he’d done.
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Linda whispered his name — Richard. His voice, when he answered her, carried no warmth at all. Tristan, completely lost, asked who he was. I told him this was Richard. When Linda demanded to know why he was there, Richard answered plainly: I own the place.
Richard was Tristan’s grandfather — Linda’s own father, a man she had spent years pretending didn’t exist. Six months earlier, while sorting through old family photos, I’d found a picture of a young Tristan sitting on the shoulders of a smiling man labeled Grandpa Richard. When I asked Linda about it, she snatched the photo away and said only, He isn’t part of our lives.
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