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When Julie left the law firm that morning, file in hand, the world had changed: three children. Jeremy Cates. A name that knocked like a door we thought was closed forever.

She got into her car, turned off the engine, and opened the seatback. Nothing more: a name, a post office box number, and that ridiculous phrase: "Unless the three heirs agree, none of them gets anything."

But who was this Jeremy? And why had their father kept it a shameful secret?

---

Julie decided to write.

"Mr. Cates,
My name is Julie Mersenne. I'm contacting you regarding the estate of my father, Thomas Cates. You've been appointed heir. We must definitely meet.
Please call me at this number.

• Julie"

She left her number, put the message in an envelope, and sent it that same day.

Three days later, a voicemail appeared on his phone, recorded in a halting voice:

Hi, Julie. This is Jeremy... I just got your message. I don't understand everything... I never knew my father. Is he dead?

---

They met at a café halfway between their cities.

Jeremy was in his thirties, younger than her, and had the same steely gray eyes as their father. He wore a loose-fitting jacket and looked out at the world as if it were waiting for him to strike.

"You didn't know anything?" Julie asked, surprised.

"Nothing. My mother told me my father was a lost musician. Never a name. Just... a kind of passing. When I was sixteen From my age, she showed me a picture of him playing the violin in a bar in New Orleans. That was it.

“He wasn’t a musician,” she said. “He was a businessman. Coldness personified. He lived in silence, books, and missed appointments. Nothing was known about him. Even my brother had been missing from her life for years.”

Jeremy frowned.

“You mean there’s another brother?”

“Yes, Alex. But he’s missing too. And without the three signatures… we’ll have nothing.”

---

They hired a private investigator.

A month later, Alex was found: an inmate in a psychiatric facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Psychotic episode. Loss of identity. He’d refused all contact for over a year. Their father hadn’t even visited him.

Julie flew off on her own, clutching the file like an artifact.

Alex barely spoke, but when she mentioned Jeremy, he jumped.

“Dad said…” “You’ve failed twice in life.” And I won't fail a third time." I thought he was talking about the two of us... but now...

He signed without reading, his eyes blank, as if he were slamming the door in their father's face.

---

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On June 17, the three heirs gathered at the notary's office.

They were given the key to the family mansion, a dilapidated Victorian building on a lake in Vermont.

They went there together.

The hallways were covered with canvas. The findings were illustrated. Children's drawings signed "J." Letters partially torn.

In a locked room, they discovered a dark room filled with carefully cataloged items.

A picture of Alex as a child, a lock of hair in a box. A letter addressed to "my son Jeremy," never sent.

Julie read aloud:

I don't know how to tell you this, Jeremy. I didn't love your grandparents as they deserved. When your mother wrote to me, I understood too late. I built a wall around myself, thinking it would protect me... but it It was a prison. I leave you this house because I lost everything in it. And maybe if you two get together, you'll find something in it that I could never offer.

Forgiveness.

---

They stood there without speaking.

Then Jeremy stood and looked at the broken windows, the old, untuned piano, the smell of mold and regret.

"We could make it a music center," he said. "A place where lost children find their voices. A school. Or a shelter."

Julie looked at him.

"Dad would never have wanted that."

"Exactly. We're doing it."

---

Thank you very much for reading, it's time to invite my friends @sualeha, @drhira, @shiftitamanna to participate in this contest.

Best Regards,
@kouba01