My parents told me «You’re adopted, you get nothing when we die.» Then grandma’s lawyer called: «She left you $2 million… and a letter about your parents’ lies.» I drove to their house with a smile…

I found photos there that I’d never seen before. Pictures of me as a baby with my real mother, family gatherings where I looked happy and loved, evidence of the life I might have had if Jennifer had lived. I also found more letters from Grandma Eleanor, written but never sent, documenting years of trying to maintain contact with me.

Birthday cards she’d bought but wasn’t allowed to give me. Christmas presents that were returned unopened. I finished my degree, business administration with a focus on finance.

With my grandmother’s money properly invested, I don’t have to work, but I do anyway. I started a non-profit organization that helps kids who age out of foster care, kids who know what it’s like to feel unwanted and alone. My father has called me exactly once since that day at Margaret’s office.

He asked if I would consider helping them avoid foreclosure on their house. I told him to contact my lawyer if he wanted to discuss anything financial. Susan sends me Christmas cards every year with notes about family forgiveness and moving forward.

I throw them away unopened. Logan lost the boat, couldn’t make the payments without the inheritance he was counting on. Ashley had to get a job to help her parents pay their bills.

They learned what I’d always known, that money doesn’t just appear because you want it to and that actions have consequences. But the best part isn’t the money as life-changing as it’s been. The best part is the truth.

For the first time in my life, I know who I really am. I know that I was loved unconditionally by at least one person. I know that my real mother didn’t abandon me, she was taken from me.

I know that the feeling of never quite belonging wasn’t my fault. Sometimes I sit in Grandma Eleanor’s garden, reading her letters and looking through old photo albums and I feel her presence. I feel the love she wasn’t allowed to give me while she was alive, the relationship we were cheated out of by my father’s cowardice and Susan’s cruelty.

I wish I could thank her in person. I wish I could tell her that her final gift wasn’t just the money, it was the truth. And the truth, it turns out, is worth more than two million dollars.

Though the two million dollars doesn’t hurt either.