Here is the completion of the story based on the text in the image:
But the lawyer continued, “It’s no mistake. Brenna is your sister.”
The room fell silent. I felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. “My… what? I’m an only child! My mother and father were married for thirty years!”
“Brenna was born two years before you,” the lawyer explained, his voice softening. “It was a relationship your father had before he met your mother. He was young, scared, and his parents forced him to walk away. He signed an agreement never to contact her, but he watched her from afar his whole life.”
He slid a sealed envelope across the mahogany table. “He wanted you to have this.”
With trembling hands, I opened the letter. In my dad’s familiar, messy scrawl, he explained everything. He wrote about the guilt that ate him alive while he raised me in luxury, knowing his other daughter was struggling to make ends meet in a trailer park just two towns over. He wrote that he had already set up a trust for me years ago—enough to be comfortable—but the bulk of the estate, the “millions” I felt entitled to, was his attempt to balance the scales for a lifetime of absence.
“Mona,” the letter read, “I gave you my time, my presence, and my love. I gave Brenna nothing. Please, don’t fight this. Give her a chance.”
My first instinct was rage. I wanted to sue. I wanted to scream. But curiosity got the better of me. I needed to see the woman who had “stolen” my inheritance.
I found Brenna working a double shift at a diner. She looked exhausted, wearing a stained apron and comfortable shoes that had seen better days. But when she laughed with a customer, I froze. She had Dad’s eyes. She had his crooked smile.
I sat in her section. When she came to take my order, I didn’t tell her about the money. I just told her who I was.
I expected her to be angry, or to immediately ask about the will. Instead, she dropped her notepad, tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t care about the bank account. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand.
“I knew he had another family,” she whispered. “I never thought… I never thought I’d get to meet my sister.”
In that moment, my anger evaporated. Dad knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t need the millions; I had a career, a house, and a life. Brenna needed the help. But more than that, Dad knew that once he was gone, I would be alone in the world.
He didn’t just leave Brenna the money. He left me a sister.
We split the cheesecake. And for the first time since the funeral, I wasn’t just smiling; I was happy. The lawyer was right. It was no mistake.
