They both.S. jumped.
Emily immediately stood up.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me what? That you’re taking advantage of my grandfather?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Grandpa stepped between us.
“That’s enough. Emily has never asked me for money.”
Then he told me the truth.
Months earlier, Emily had started visiting him because she was worried about how lonely he had become. Their conversations grew longer and longer. Their friendship slowly turned into something neither of them had expected.
They knew how people would react because of the enormous age difference.
Most of all, they knew how I would react.
That was why they had kept it a secret.
“And the will?” I demanded.
Grandpa looked at me.
“I’m going to change it.”
I looked at Emily.
She desperately shook her head.
“Tell her the rest.”
Grandpa walked over to his desk and returned with several documents.
“Emily asked me to remove her name.”
I fell silent.
He had wanted to leave her money.
She had refused every last penny.
Emily looked at me through her tears.
“I knew you would think this was about his money. That’s why I begged him not to leave me anything.”
Suddenly, all my assumptions collapsed.
I looked at Grandpa.
He smiled sadly.
“At seventy-eight, I didn’t expect this either. But being old doesn’t mean I’ve stopped having feelings.”
Emily took his hand again.
This time, neither of them tried to hide it.
And as I stood there watching them, I finally understood the secret they had been desperately trying to keep from me.
The relationship was real.
But money had never been the reason.
