In under six months, every challenge they raised had been dismissed.

It was not even close.

I did not keep all of it for myself.

That was never what any of it had been about.

I used part of the land’s value to pay off the mortgage on our house, so that my husband and I would never lie awake over it again.

I set aside an untouchable fund for my son’s education, so that whatever else life brought him, that one door would always be open.

And with the rest — with the greater part of it — I established a foundation in Fiona’s name, a small local thing at first and then something larger, dedicated to the care of the elderly poor of our county: home visits, warm meals, hands to hold, so that no old woman in this corner of Ohio would ever again have to spend her final winter watching a door for children who would not come.