You’re forty-three, Hannah, and you still think Mom left that bakery to you? Sign

Drew slid the quitclaim across the table like a dare, gold pen on top. “Don’t make this ugly, Han. The appraiser already came. I’m being generous offering you a manager position.” I picked up the pen. I turned it over in my fingers. Then I set it down on the bread plate and reached into my apron pocket. Out came a folded envelope, creased soft from six months of carrying. “Mom’s attorney mailed this in April,” I said. “You were in Aspen. You didn’t return the call.” Drew’s smile twitched. I opened the letter and laid it flat between the candles. It was the recorded deed. Lila’s Bistro, the bakery, and the lot behind it had been transferred into a living trust in 2019 — four years before Mom passed. Sole trustee and sole beneficiary: me. The will he’d been waving around governed her checking account and a Buick. That was it. “You can’t,” he started. “I already did,” I said. “In 2019, when she could still sign her name. She told me you’d come for the building the minute she was gone. She was right on the month.” His face went the color of raw dough. The waiter, who’d known me since I was sixteen, quietly set down a second envelope — the one I’d asked him to hold. Inside was a printout of every wire Drew had taken from Mom’s account during her last year. Forty-one thousand dollars labeled “loan.” My attorney had flagged each one. “You have two choices,” I said. “Repay it by the first, or I file. Either way, you’re not getting the bakery. You’re not getting the booth. You’re not getting the recipe for the brown-butter brioche that paid for your law school.” He stood up so fast the wine tipped. I caught the glass before it stained Mom’s tablecloth. The whole dining room watched him walk out. I sat there a minute longer, alone in her booth, and finally untied my apron. Tomorrow I’d hire a second baker. Tonight I’d order the steak.