“SO… THE HOUSE?” she asked, bright-eyed.
Kaia jumped in. “IS IT SPLIT THREE WAYS?”
The attorney adjusted his glasses. “June left the house jointly to Maris and Kaia.”
Maris’s smile flashed.
Kaia’s shoulders lifted like she’d just won something.
Then the attorney turned to me.
“Blythe,” he said, “June left you Scout.”
Kaia laughed. “The DOG?”
Maris smirked. “WOW.
CONGRATS. YOU TENDED TO GRANDMA FOR NOTHING!”
My throat tightened, but I didn’t give them a reaction to feed on.
I stood. “So I can take him today?”
The attorney nodded.
“Yes.”
Kaia tilted her head. “Guess you got your reward.”
I walked out without looking back.
Scout waited in my car on a blanket that smelled like Grandma.
When I opened the door, he looked up and thumped his tail once, tired but trusting.
“Come on, buddy,” I whispered. “We’re going home.”
My apartment was tiny and too quiet.
Scout sniffed every corner, then circled and dropped with a heavy sigh like he was clocking in.
I sat on the floor beside him and cried into his fur.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry.”
He nudged my hand like, yes, okay, but please stop.
That night, he wouldn’t settle.
He kept pawing his collar and staring at me like I was missing a clue.
“You need to go out?” I asked.
He didn’t move toward the door.
He pawed the collar again.
I leaned in and saw a tiny sticker on his tag.
A QR code.
My stomach flipped.
At two in the morning, with my phone shaking in my hand, I scanned it.
A page opened: For the one who chose Scout. Password required.
My mouth went dry.
I typed dumb guesses. June.
Grandma. Scout. Love.
Nothing.
Scout rested his chin on my knee, eyes calm, like he’d been waiting for me to catch up.
I stared at the screen until my eyes burned, then typed what Grandma called me when I was little.
softheart
The page unlocked.
A video loaded, and Grandma’s face filled my screen, healthy and bright.
It hit me so hard I gasped.
“Hi, honey,” she said, smiling.
“If you’re seeing this, you did what I asked.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Listen carefully,” she said. “Scout is not just a dog.
Scout is the test.”
I let out a shaky laugh that sounded like a sob.
“If you bargained—if you asked, ‘What else?’—then you weren’t the one I could trust,” she said. “But you didn’t.”
Her eyes softened.
My chest squeezed. “What truth?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, “take Scout to Dr.
Patel’s clinic. Ask for a file under Scout’s name.”
I blinked. “Under his name?”
“They’ll know,” she said.
“Inside is an envelope and a key.”
Then her expression turned firm.
“Do not confront your sisters yet,” she said. “Do not warn them. Let them show you who they are when they think they’ve won.”
The video ended.
My apartment felt colder.
Scout licked my fingers once, slow and certain.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“We’ll do it.”
In the morning, I drove across town with Scout in the passenger seat.
The clinic smelled like antiseptic and wet fur.
Scout’s tail thumped once like he remembered.
The receptionist looked up and her face changed. “Scout.”
I swallowed. “I’m Blythe.
June’s granddaughter. I… was told there’s a file under Scout’s name.”
She didn’t ask questions.
She disappeared into the back and returned with a manila folder.
“Take care of him,” she said softly.
“I will,” I replied.
In the parking lot, I opened the folder with shaking hands.
A sealed envelope said Blythe only in Grandma’s handwriting.
A small key was taped to a note: Storage Unit 118. Bring someone.
I stared at it, heart pounding.
Then I called my friend Tessa because I didn’t trust myself not to faint in public.
She answered, cheerful.
“Hey!”
“I need you,” I said. “Like, now.”
Her tone flipped instantly. “I’m coming.
Where are you?”
Unit 118 opened with a squeal.
Inside were neatly stacked bins, photo albums, and a small lockbox that looked like it belonged in a bank.
Tessa stared. “Your grandma planned.”
“She always did,” I murmured.
We hauled two bins and the lockbox to my car.
Back at my apartment, I opened the sealed envelope first.
It held bank statements, a handwritten ledger, and a typed document titled Trust Contingency.
I read the trust clause twice, then a third time, because my brain refused to accept it.
If Maris or Kaia tried to sell the house, borrow against it, or remove property before the estate settled, the house transferred into a charitable trust.
They would lose it.
Tessa exhaled. “That’s savage.”
I flipped to the ledger.
Grandma had written down every “loan” she’d ever given my sisters, down to the dollar.
Emergency rent.
Car payment. “Just until payday. Promise to pay back.”
None of it had been repaid.
I plugged in the thumb drive and listened to voicemails.
Maris: “Grandma, it’s just practical.
Put us on the account.”
Kaia: “You’re sick. Let us handle it.”
My hands curled into fists.
They hadn’t been too busy. They’d been too greedy.
A week after the will reading, I went to Grandma’s house for sentimental things.
I brought Scout because I didn’t trust my sisters not to “lose” him on purpose.
Also, I needed him pressed against my leg like an anchor.
When I opened the front door, music blasted through the living room.
Not Grandma’s old-country station.
Something loud and thumpy.
Maris and Kaia were inside like they’d moved in.
Boxes lined the hall.
Trash bags sat open on the floor like hungry mouths.
Kaia held up Grandma’s casserole dish with two fingers. “Why did she keep this junk?”
Maris pointed her phone at a stack of vintage Pyrex. “That’s worth money.
Don’t toss that.”
My throat tightened.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Kaia turned, eyes bright. “Sorting. This place is a gold mine.”
Maris didn’t even say hi.
“Take whatever little knickknacks you want. Just don’t touch anything valuable.”
Scout growled low, a sound I hadn’t heard from him before.
Kaia rolled her eyes. “Oh my God.
Your little dog is still here?”
“He’s not little,” I said. “And he’s not yours.”
Maris smirked. “Relax.
We’re not stealing your prize.”
Kaia laughed, sharp and mean. “Seriously, Blythe. What are you doing here, loser?
Go walk your little dog.”
The word loser landed hard because it proved Grandma right.
To them, I was labor. A tool. Something to step over.
I didn’t yell.
I didn’t cry.
I walked to the dining table and set my folder down next to their piles.
Maris frowned.
“What is that?”
“Grandma’s real plan,” I said.
Kaia snorted. “The will was read. We got the house.
You got the dog. End of story.”
I slid the trust clause toward them.
Maris read the first lines and went still.
Kaia leaned over. “What is this?”
“It says,” I replied evenly, “if either of you sells the house, borrows against it, or removes property before the estate settles, the house transfers into a charitable trust.”
Kaia made an incredulous face.
“She already did,” I said.
“It’s filed.”
Maris’s fingers trembled. “This is fake.”
I laid down the bank statements and the ledger.
“Then explain the withdrawals during chemo,” I said. “Explain why the amounts match the ‘loans’ Grandma wrote down.”
Kaia’s face flushed.
“You went through her stuff?”
I looked around at the torn-open drawers and trash bags. “You’re going through her stuff right now.”
Maris snapped, “You think you’re some hero because you played nurse?”
My voice shook, but I held it steady. “I didn’t play anything.
I was here. Every day.”
Kaia’s voice cracked, half rage, half panic. “So you’re blackmailing us.”
“No,” I said.
“Grandma set boundaries. I’m enforcing them.”
Scout leaned into my leg, warm and solid.
I looked down at him, then back at my sisters.
“She didn’t give me Scout as a consolation prize,” I said. “She gave me Scout because she knew whoever loved him enough to take him without asking ‘what else’ was the person she could trust.”
Maris stared at Scout like he’d turned into a grenade.
“This is insane,” she whispered.
“It is,” I agreed.
“But it’s real.”
I gestured to the boxes. “Put it back. Stop taking things out of this house.”
Kaia opened her mouth, then closed it.
Maris swallowed and tried a new tone, thin and controlled.
“Fine. What do you want?”
I stared at the room where Grandma used to roll out pie dough and call me softheart.
“I want you to stop turning her life into a garage sale,” I said.
For a moment, only the music filled the silence.
I clipped Scout’s leash on.
He pressed his shoulder to my shin like he was bracing me.
I walked out without slamming the door.
Outside, the air felt cold and clean.
Scout trotted beside me, steady as a heartbeat.
In the car, my hands shook on the wheel.
“You did good,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I meant Scout or me.
Scout huffed like it was obvious.
The house shrank in my rearview mirror.
It wasn’t a prize. It wasn’t a win.
It was proof Grandma had seen everything, and she still found a way to protect what mattered.
If you could give one piece of advice to anyone in this story, what would it be?
Let’s talk about it in the Facebook comments.
