It was a legal document, nothing more, and yet what it said dumbfounded me. My families estranged uncle Henry, a man so secluded and secretive barely anyone knew how or when, but nevertheless, my uncle Henry, he had died.

I kept reading.

It was contested by the rest of my family for months without me knowing it, but apparently, my uncle, whom I had barely, if at all, known, had been keeping tabs on me, and through what it appeared were remarkably substantial means unknown by my family for generations.

It would appear my uncle felt a kinship with me as a fellow black sheep of the family, and it was, it seemed at the time, because of this, only this, much to the chagrin of the rest of my family, that I was his sole heir.