I paused the video, went to the master bedroom, and found the key exactly where he had said it would be. Retracing Joshua’s path, I located the door at the far end of the east wing. The key turned smoothly. I opened it and gasped.
A fully equipped art studio filled the large corner room, bathed in perfect northern light from floor-to-ceiling windows. Easels. Canvases. Paints. Brushes. Everything a painter could want, arranged with loving precision.
I hadn’t painted in twenty years.
After college I had set aside my artistic ambitions to teach, to help support us while Joshua built his engineering career and we raised Jenna. Over the years, someday had become a distant dream, then eventually a bittersweet memory of a road not taken.
The video continued, Joshua’s voice drawing me back to the laptop I had carried with me.
“You gave up so much for us, Cat. Your painting was the first sacrifice. Though you never complained, I always promised myself I’d give it back to you someday.”
Tears blurred my vision as I looked around the studio. The professional-grade supplies. The shelves of inspiration books. The north-facing windows providing perfect, steady light.
“There’s one more thing. Check the cabinet below the window seat.”
I crossed to the cushioned window seat overlooking the eastern pasture, now washed in morning gold. Beneath it, built into the wall, was a cabinet I might never have noticed on my own. Inside rested a flat archival box.
With trembling hands, I lifted the lid and dropped to my knees.
My paintings. Dozens of them. Everything I had created in college, the pieces I thought had been lost through years of moves and cramped apartments and practical life. Joshua had preserved them. Protected them. Kept them safe for two decades until he could return them to me in this perfect room.
On top lay a small canvas I recognized instantly. My final project before graduation. A self-portrait of a young woman looking forward, eyes bright with possibility. Joshua had asked to keep it the day I finished it.
Tucked beside it was a handwritten note.
She’s still in there, Cat. The woman who painted with such passion and vision. I’ve given you the space. The rest is up to you.
I clutched the note to my chest, overwhelmed by love and grief in equal measure. Joshua had seen me, truly seen me, in ways I hadn’t allowed myself to be seen in years.
The sound of vehicles on the gravel driveway yanked me back to the present. Moving to the studio window, I watched two cars approach, the now familiar black SUV of the Mitchell brothers and, behind it, a sleek silver Mercedes I recognized instantly.
Jenna had arrived.
And from the way she stepped out of her car and walked confidently toward the brothers, it was obvious they had already been working on her.
My daughter, Joshua’s daughter, with his dark hair and my stubborn chin, was smiling and shaking hands with the uncles she had never met. Whatever fragile peace I had found in Joshua’s posthumous gifts evaporated in the face of this new complication. The battle for Maple Creek Farm had just become deeply, painfully personal.
I watched from the window as Jenna greeted the men with open, receptive body language. At twenty-seven, she had Joshua’s analytical mind and my determination, but not Joshua’s patience or my caution. She was quick to form conclusions and slow to revise them. My phone buzzed with a text from her.
Arrived with Uncle Robert and the others. Coming in now. We need to talk.
Uncle Robert. They had known each other less than a day, and already she was claiming family. I tucked Joshua’s note into my pocket, locked the studio behind me, and went to face the new alliance waiting downstairs.
They entered without knocking, Jenna leading with the automatic entitlement of a daughter in her parents’ home, the brothers following in her wake like wolves behind an unwitting guide.
“Mom.”
Jenna hugged me briefly, then stepped back, her eyes darting around the stunning entryway.
“This place is unbelievable. Why didn’t Dad ever tell us about it?”
Before I could answer, Robert stepped forward, the resemblance to Joshua painfully sharp in the morning light.
“Catherine, I believe we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. We were surprised by your sudden appearance, just as you were surprised by ours.”
His conciliatory tone did not match the calculating look in his eyes. Beside him, Allan and David maintained carefully neutral expressions, although Allan clutched a leather portfolio that undoubtedly held legal documents.
“Jenna,” I said, pointedly ignoring Robert, “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t engage with your father’s brothers until we had a chance to talk.”
She flushed.
“They called again this morning with a very reasonable proposal. I thought I should at least hear them out in person. Besides, they’re my family too.”
“Family you didn’t know existed until yesterday.”
“Only because Dad kept them from us,” she shot back. “Just like he kept this whole place secret. Don’t you think that’s strange? What else was he hiding?”
The question landed too close to the truth Joshua’s videos had already revealed. Yes, he had hidden things. His illness. The purchase of the farm. The studio. But his reasons had been born of love, not deceit for its own sake.
“Your father had complicated relationships with his brothers,” I said carefully. “He had reasons for the distance he maintained.”
“Ancient history,” Robert said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Siblings clash, especially in difficult families like ours. What matters now is moving forward together.”
“Exactly,” Jenna said, with the earnestness of someone convinced she was being entirely reasonable. “Uncle Robert explained everything. This farm has been in the Mitchell family for generations. Dad bought it from Grandpa Mitchell, but it was always meant to be shared among the brothers eventually.”
I suppressed a sigh. They had been working on her less than twenty-four hours, and already she was repeating their version of events.
“And the sudden interest in the property wouldn’t have anything to do with the oil discovery?” I asked mildly.
Allan stepped forward and opened his portfolio.
“The mineral rights situation is just one aspect of a more complex legal picture. We’ve prepared a fair settlement offer that honors Joshua’s wishes while acknowledging the Mitchell family’s historic claim to the property.”
“We’re prepared to be very generous,” Robert added, resting a grandfatherly hand on Jenna’s shoulder. “One-third share to you, Catherine. One-third to Jenna. One-third split among us brothers. Everyone wins.”
Jenna looked at me expectantly, clearly already persuaded.
“It makes sense, Mom. We don’t need this huge place. We could sell it, walk away with millions, and Dad’s family stays intact.”
“Your father specifically left this property to me,” I said, meeting Robert’s gaze. “Not to you. Not to his brothers.”
“Out of confusion and misplaced sentiment,” Robert countered smoothly. “Joshua wasn’t thinking clearly in his final years.”
A flash of anger burned through me.
“My husband was perfectly sound of mind until the day he died.”
“Then why all the secrecy?” David asked for the first time, his voice softer than his brothers’, but no less pointed. “Why hide the property purchase from his wife and daughter? Why the elaborate arrangements with the lawyer? These aren’t the actions of a man thinking rationally.”
I thought of the videos. The renovated farm. The art studio. The college paintings returned to me after two decades. Everything had been precise, intentional, lucid.
“Mom,” Jenna said, gentler now, “I know this is hard. Dad left us with all these secrets. But this proposal makes financial sense. We’d both be set for life.”
The door opened behind them and Ellis appeared, his weathered face carefully neutral.
“Everything all right, Mrs. Mitchell? I saw the vehicles arrive.”
The brothers turned, visibly annoyed.
