You attended her funeral.
It was a small affair, only family, as the deceased, it turned out, had been a very harsh woman in life and had not made many friends. Given the intimate nature of the funeral, one would have thought that the grieving family would turn to each other in this hour of sorrow. That would, of course, have been expected of any other family. This family, however, was comprised solely of strangers. Not one knew of the other before this day. In relation to the deceased, there was a great grand niece, the estranged wife of a second cousin, and you. The previously unknown granddaughter of the old woman who now lay dead in her casket. You never knew her, and you feel an odd surge of guilt for it. You know it is not your fault for not knowing, and yet it eats you alive. You feel self-conscious among the other women of the family, who impale you with the harsh cruelty of their eyes. You have no way of knowing how close they may have been to her, but you know that they all despise you for what was, once again, no fault of your own. When you received the invitation to the celebration of life ceremony for a woman you knew nothing of in the mail two weeks prior, your shock was equaled only by the second letter, the will, and deed to her entire estate. You have no idea why she chose to endow her home and assets to you; out of everyone, surely the sad reception present on this day was not indicative of her entire familial relations? Surely there was someone, somewhere, more qualified? Someone better suited? Someone older? Someone who knew what to do with it all. Yet, out of the sea of possibilities, she chose you. The 19-year-old dropout, the runaway. The one who had nothing. Upon opening the letter, you felt immediately conflicted. As this should have been a reason for celebration. This kind of shit only happens in the movies; nothing this good ever happened to people, not real people, and especially not to people like you. Yet, something about the whole ordeal felt dark and tainted somehow. As though you couldn't quite put your finger on it, but there was something very wrong about the whole operation. Yet, you weren't stupid enough to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. So here she stood, in the only black dress she owned, better fit for a nightclub than a funeral, and cast white roses upon the grave of the woman she had never met and never would. Then, without a word of goodbye to the remaining relatives you did not know and did not care to, you walked out of the graveyard. It was then that a strange feeling of excitement began to curl up at the edges of your apprehension. You were going to see it, the house she had left to you, and whatever lay within it; you were going someplace that was now undeniably yours, and yours alone; you were going home.
