When I approached my father’s coffin to say goodbye, Vivien blocked my path, seizing the moment to remind me of my perpetual outsider status. “Lucian, let’s not make a scene. This is about family,” she hissed, her voice as saccharine as ever. Her words were a calculated barb, meant to wound and exclude. I stayed silent, swallowing my bitterness, knowing that my father lay beyond hearing, beyond forgiveness.

I spent the next week in a fog of grief and anger, avoiding the sympathetic eyes of strangers who did not know the truth of my family. And then came the will reading, the final act in the tragic play of my father’s life. I arrived at the lawyer’s office, prepared for Vivien’s inevitable opposition. True to form, she intercepted me at the door, her children flanking her like sentinels. “This meeting is only for heirs,” she announced, her triumph barely concealed.