ONE LAST TEXT
"That's between your mother and myself, son. I'm sure she'll walk you through anything relevant when the time's right."
I didn't push it further, mostly because pushing a stranger for details about my own mother's private legal affairs felt like the wrong way to find out anything real, and I drove home turning the phrase over anyway, sole beneficiary, confirmed lineage, wondering what exactly my mother was trying to settle and why it needed language that specific.
I asked her about it that evening, sitting beside her bed while she picked at a plate of food she wasn't really eating.
"Mr. Alvarez mentioned something in the paperwork," I said, careful, not wanting to sound like I'd been snoopin