He answered on the second ring, his voice calm and steady against my rising panic.

“Arthur, they just sent me a photo of a new will,” I said.

“Who sent it, Sophia?” he asked.

“An unknown number, but it has Ryan’s signature as a witness,” I said. “They say it was signed three days before she died.”

There was a long silence on the line.

“Three days before her passing, your mother was in the intensive care unit at St. Jude’s,” Arthur said. “She was heavily medicated.”

“I know,” I said. “She couldn’t even sit up.”

“Keep the text,” Arthur said. “Do not reply to it. I will contact the hospital for the official visitor logs and the medical charts from that specific date.”

I hung up the phone and looked around the empty living room.

The cardboard boxes sat like small monuments to my past life.

I did not sleep that night.

I sat by the window and watched the headlights of passing cars sweep across the ceiling.

At eight o’clock the next morning, Arthur called me back.