Chapter 4 - THE WILL OF AUGUSTA VANCE
Grandma Augusta had been the only real human being in a family made of gold leaf and cheap plaster.
She was my father's mother—a tall, formidable woman who had lived in the Vermont lake house year-round until her death three years ago at the age of eighty-eight. She wore oversized flannel shirts, smelled of woodsmoke and peppermint, and spent her mornings rowing a heavy wooden boat across Lake Willoughby while the rest of the world was still asleep.
Eleanor had hated her.
Eleanor viewed Augusta as crude, stubborn, and hopelessly unrefined because Augusta refused to attend county club galas or care about the social standing of the Vance name.
But Augusta had loved Juny with a fierce, protective devotion that bordered on worship.
When Juny was seven, she had been diagnosed with a mild Auditory Processing Disorder—a learning difference that meant she sometimes took a few seconds longer to process spoken sentences.
Eleanor and Davina had immediately labeled her "slow" and "defective." At family dinners, Eleanor would speak to Juny in loud, exaggerated baby voices, while Davina made subtle snide remarks about special education classes.
Augusta had put an end to it.
She had driven four hours down to our suburban town every single month to attend Juny's school recitals, her science fairs, and her piano competitions. She sat in the front row, clapping louder than anyone else in the auditorium. She would grab Juny’s small face in her calloused hands, look her straight in the eyes, and say: "Don't you ever let those soft, silly women make you feel small, Juny-bug. You have a lion's heart inside you. You just speak a different language than the sheep."
When Augusta died three years ago, the family descended upon the lake house like vultures over a carcass.
Eleanor had immediately claimed the silver dinnerware, the antique mahogany furniture, and the expensive jewelry. Davina had taken the crystal stemware and the Persian rugs.
And the house itself—the magnificent, six-bedroom timber-frame estate sitting on twelve acres of prime Lake Willoughby shoreline—had been treated by my parents as their personal family inheritance.
They held their summer vacations there. They invited their wealthy friends for autumn wine weekends. They took Christmas card photos in front of the grand stone fireplace.
They assumed it was theirs because they were the "real" Vances.
They had signed the basic probate paperwork at the local courthouse after the funeral, taking the physical keys, never bothering to read the fine print of Augusta’s complex living trust because they believed a matriarch’s property naturally flowed to her eldest son.
They didn't know Augusta had spent the final six months of her life working secretly with her lifelong friend and estate attorney, Miss Beatrice Castellano.
They didn't know because Augusta knew precisely who her family was.
At 2:15 AM, the double doors of the surgical suite swung open.
Dr. Chen stepped out, pulling off her surgical cap, her face lined with exhaustion but her eyes clear and calm.
I stood up instantly. "Doctor?"
"She's out of surgery, Clara," Dr. Chen said, offering a genuine, warm smile. "We got it just in time. The appendix was severely infected, heavily swollen, and actively leaking fluid, but it had not fully ruptured. We were able to remove it laparoscopically without any major complications."
I let out a ragged breath, dropping my head into my hands as a wave of pure relief washed over me. "Thank God. Thank God."
"She's in the recovery room right now," Dr. Chen continued. "She's going to be very sore for a few days, and we'll keep her on IV antibiotics until Sunday morning to ensure the infection is completely cleared out. But she's going to be just fine."
"Can I see her?"
"Of course. Follow me."
Room 214 was quiet, bathed in the soft blue glow of the heart monitor.
Juny lay in the center of the bed, wrapped in three warm white blankets. Her color was already returning—the awful gray hue gone, replaced by a soft, pale pink. A small white bandage sat low on her abdomen beneath the sheets, and a clear plastic IV tube was taped neatly to the back of her hand.
She was sound asleep, her chest rising and falling in a slow, deep, peaceful rhythm.
I dragged a vinyl armchair to the side of her bed, sat down, and took her small, warm hand in mine.
I reached into my purse with my free hand, pulled out my wallet, and extracted a small, worn business card that had been sitting behind my driver's license for three years.
Castellano & Associates — Estate Planning & Real Property Law.
Beatrice Castellano, Esq.
I picked up my phone.
It was 2:45 AM. Too early to call an office, but I knew Miss Castellano kept a personal cell phone listed on her firm’s private client portal for emergencies.
I dialed the number.
It rang three times before a crisp, sharp, entirely alert female voice answered the line.
"Castellano."
"Miss Castellano," I said, my voice steady, clear, and devoid of any tremor. "This is Clara Vance. Augusta’s granddaughter."
There was a short pause on the line, followed by the soft sound of a desk lamp clicking on.
"Clara," Beatrice Castellano said, her voice dropping into a tone of quiet, deep warmth. "I have been waiting for this phone call for three years."
"I'm at Northern Vermont Regional Hospital," I said, looking down at my daughter’s sleeping face. "Juny just came out of emergency surgery. My family left her to suffer for three days because they thought she was being dramatic."
A heavy, dangerous silence settled over the line.
"I see," Miss Castellano said softly. "And where are Richard and Eleanor right now?"
"They are at the lake house," I replied, a cold smile touching the corners of my mouth. "Drinking bourbon on the patio, posting pictures on social media, celebrating that dinner was quiet without us."
Miss Castellano let out a long, slow breath. "Augusta told me this would happen. She sat in my office six months before she passed, looked me dead in the eye, and said: 'Beatrice, those greedy fools are going to use my house like a hotel, and they are going to treat my little girl like garbage until Clara finally grows a spine. When Clara calls you, execute the trust.'"
"Is the trust intact, Miss Castellano?" I asked.
"It is flawless, Clara," the attorney answered, the sound of paper rustling over the receiver. "Augusta placed the entire Willoughby property—the house, the twelve acres, the boat house, and the private dock—into an irrevocable, land-locked trust."
She paused, letting the weight of the next sentence settle in the air.
"The sole beneficiary of the Augusta Vance Heritage Trust is not your father, Richard. It is not your mother, Eleanor. And it is not you."
Miss Castellano smiled through the phone.
"The sole, exclusive owner of Lake Willoughby Estate is fourteen-year-old Juny Vance."
My heart pounded against my ribs—not with fear, but with a sudden, soaring sense of vindication.
"Under the explicit terms of the trust," Miss Castellano continued, her voice taking on the sharp, lethal edge of a master prosecutor, "your parents were granted a temporary, revocable occupancy license to maintain the property until Juny turned fourteen. That license explicitly stipulates that the property may be revoked immediately if the beneficiary is subjected to neglect, mistreatment, or if the primary trustee—you, Clara—determines that their presence is inimical to Juny's well-being."
Miss Castellano leaned into her microphone.
"Clara, if I file the formal Notice of Revocation and Eviction with the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department tomorrow morning, your parents will have exactly twenty-four hours to remove their personal belongings from the property. After that, they will be legally barred from stepping foot on the land under penalty of criminal trespass."
She paused, giving me time to process the sheer magnitude of what she was offering.
"Do you understand what happens if I press 'send' on these documents, Clara?" Miss Castellano asked quietly. "There will be no polite phone calls. There will be no family dinners. There will be no coming back from this. You will be blowing up the bridge behind you."
I looked down at Juny.
I looked at the fresh white bandage beneath her hospital gown. I remembered her trembling body on the boat, her whimpering on the dirt trail, her gray face hitting the cold restaurant tile while my mother adjusted her diamond bracelet and took a sip of wine.
May you like
I leaned closer to the phone, my voice dropping into a register of absolute, unshakeable certainty.
"Send it."
