When the lawyer slid the small key across the desk, it felt almost insulting beside the numbers he’d just read aloud. A locker instead of a check, a mystery instead of applause. Yet as I traced the worn metal with my thumb, I realized it matched the quiet weight of Berta’s collar, the same weight I’d felt when I carried her out of that frozen house. My grandmother had never been impressed by who could grab the fastest; she’d paid attention to who could stay, who could listen, who would kneel on the kitchen floor to fill an old dog’s bowl before filling their own plate.

At the locker, the folder waited—modest, unadorned, like her. The letter inside didn’t praise me; it simply named what she’d seen. Choosing Berta had not earned me her inheritance; it had revealed it. Walking back to the car, I understood: the money was fuel, not a finish line. Her last act was not to enrich me, but to conscript me—into a life where love shows up first for the smallest, most easily overlooked creature in the room.