“I need to know if I’m in the will,” I said.
“You are,” she said.
The room didn’t change. I didn’t cry. It’s strange what you brace for without knowing you’re bracing.
“There’s a specific provision,” she added, “that was added in an amendment to the original document. Your father asked me to make the change approximately four months ago.”
“The page that’s missing from my sister’s copy,” I said.
She was careful here. She didn’t say yes directly. She said that any discrepancy between what had been shared informally with family members and what the executed instrument contained was something that would be clarified through the formal process.
“But the executed instrument — the original — is complete,” I said.
“It is,” she said.
“And I’m in it.”
“Yes.”
I sat with that for a moment. Then I asked her: “What’s the process from here?”
She walked me through it — the probate filing, the appointment of a personal representative, the formal notification of beneficiaries. She explained that as a named beneficiary I had rights in that process, including the right to be notified and the right to an accounting.
“If someone presents a different version of the document during this process,” I asked, “or tries to distribute assets in a way that’s inconsistent with the will–“
“The formal process exists to prevent that,” she said. “The executed instrument is what controls.”
She didn’t tell me what to do about Vanessa. She couldn’t, and I didn’t expect her to. But she gave me what I needed: the confirmation that the document existed, that it was complete, that my name was in it, and that the process would surface all of it.