So did Brenda.
Kyle’s face went pale.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing.”
Keith spoke quickly.
“Kyle spent more time with Frank than Paige did near the end.
He knows Frank was confused sometimes.”
My brother’s head snapped toward him.
“That’s not what I said.”
Keith frowned.
“You said he forgot things.”
“I said he forgot where he put his glasses once.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t know what he was doing.”
Justine turned on Kyle.
“Don’t start rewriting history now.”
The room became very still.
Kyle looked at me.
For the first time since the funeral, he seemed ashamed rather than defensive.
“They kept asking me questions,” he said.
“About Dad.
About whether he’d changed the will.
Keith said he was worried you were influencing him.”
I stared at him.
“And you believed that?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“You could have asked me.”
“I know.”
Those two words carried more weight than any excuse could have.
Justine pushed back her chair.
“This is getting absurd.
Frank loved Keith.
Everyone knows that.
They played golf every Sunday.”
Brenda’s expression did not change.
“Yes.
Mr.
Higgins addressed that too.”
She looked at me.
“The flash drive, please.”
I removed it from the satchel.
Keith’s face tightened.
“What’s on that?”
Brenda did not answer him.
She connected it to her laptop, but before playing anything she explained that Frank had made a video statement voluntarily in her office.
Two witnesses had been present.
The recording was not legally necessary for the trust to be valid, but Frank wanted his reasoning preserved.
Then my father appeared on the screen.
He looked thinner than he had in my memories, but his eyes were clear.
My throat closed.
“Paige,” he began, “if you are watching this, I am sorry I could not explain all of this to you myself.”
I covered my mouth.
Across the table, even Kyle began to cry.
Dad explained that after my divorce, he had continued seeing Keith because he had once considered him family and because he wanted peace.
Golf was not forgiveness of everything Keith had done.
It was simply golf.
Then Dad’s expression hardened.
