Page 23 of Once Upon a Fall

Nope. My plan didn’t work at all.

I blow out a breath. “I don’t know either,” I tell her, like I have probably a hundred times already. “But they’re her wishes, and I want to honor them.”

I thought about just letting my mom have the farm. It would be easy to just turn it over to her. She had been expecting it and counting on it. She needs it more than I do.

But she didn’t grow up here. My grandparents bought the place right after she graduated. I spent ten summers on that farm. My mom has probably spent ten days.

I can’t say for sure what prompted my grandma to change her will, but I have a feeling it had to do with my mom’s current husband. A man named Ed. He’s a piece of work. An alcoholic for sure, possibly a gambling addict. They came to visit my grandma at the nursing home in Burlington a couple of years ago, not long after they eloped, and I think she took one look at him and knew what would happen to her farm if she kept the will the way it was.

My mom would have sold it immediately, and all the money would have gone to Ed.

Maybe that’s what she wanted me to do with the property? Sell it and give the money to my mom, but in a way that someone couldn’t take it from her, like in a trust or something.

It would have to be ironclad, so she couldn’t be manipulated into spending it. Because that’s happened before. My mom will do almost anything for what she thinks is love.

What I really wish I could give her is safety. I just don’t know what that looks like.

“Do you think maybe she was suffering from dementia? She could have been losing her mind,” my mom says.

I honestly don’t know how many times she’s asked this. My grandma could recall things most of us can’t, so I don’t think that was the issue.

“I don’t think so.”

“I could contest it, you know.”

“And I told you to do it,” I remind her.

I told her that after the will was read. I think she was in shock after hearing the change, then that shock turned to confusion, which then turned to anger. Lots of how could she do this to me? And she always hated me. I think she even tried to say that this was my grandma punishing her from the grave.

I think it was my grandma saving my mom from Ed.

My mom won’t go through with it, though. At the end of the day, contesting a will costs money, and that’s something Tina Alden doesn’t have much of.

She sighs. “Well, that’s not the only reason I called,” she says.

“What else is going on?” I ask tentatively.

She hasn’t asked for money in a while, so at least Ed is making sure the bills are getting paid, which is somewhat reassuring.

“Ed and I are moving to Vegas,” she says.

I pull my chin in, even though she can’t see my expression. “What? You hate the desert.”

One time when I was around twelve, she followed a boyfriend to Arizona in the middle of summer. Our time there was short and so was the relationship. She said she never wanted to live in the desert again.

“I don’t hate it,” she says.

“I’m pretty sure you do,” I reply.

“Well, Ed wants to move there, so we’re moving. Next month. I’ll send you my address when we get there.”

I swipe a hand down my face. “Okay,” I say.

There’s nothing to argue here. I’ve watched my mom make decisions based on the men in her life enough to know that my words never work on her.

“Love you, Dean,” she says.

“Love you, too,” I tell her before hanging up.