The time had apparently come.
## What the Probate Attorney Told Me
I called a probate attorney in the morning — I’d found her through the state bar directory, a woman named Patricia Rourke who had twenty years of estate work on her website and a free initial consultation. I told her the situation in what I hoped was a clear sequence.
She listened without interrupting. Then she asked a few questions: Was there a named executor in the will? Was the estate in probate? Had a personal representative been formally appointed?
I didn’t know the answers to most of these. I knew there was a will. I knew a page was missing from the copy Vanessa had shared. I knew the name of the attorney who had drafted it.
“The document that matters,” Patricia said, “is the signed original. A photocopy a family member has — that’s for their reference. It’s not the instrument.”
“So she can’t — what she read last night, that doesn’t actually–“
“Whatever was read in that room last night has no formal legal effect on its own,” she said. “Wills are administered through the appropriate process. The signed document, filed correctly, is what controls. If there’s a page missing from what your sister shared, the original will have it.”
“Can I contact the drafting attorney directly?”
“You can,” she said. “She may not be able to share the document without the executor’s authorization or a formal process, depending on where you are and what the document says. But you can certainly reach out, explain you’re a named beneficiary — if you believe you are — and ask about next steps.”