She was writing, carefully, in the back pages.

I set a fresh cup of tea beside her.

“What are you working on, Grandma?” She looked up with a faint, gentle smile.

“I’m updating my final estate directives, Ivan.” I felt a tightness in my chest.

“You don’t need to rush into that right now.” “I’m not rushing, Ivan,” she said softly, capping the pen and resting her hand on the journal.

“I am simply putting things where they belong.” And she turned the journal toward me, and I read, in her clear and elegant script, instructions directing the entire Sterling property — the house, the surrounding thirty acres, and the remaining family trust — to be placed under an independent, irrevocable foundation, managed exclusively by me.