My Dad's Enemy Left Me in His Will

Broke college student who just inherited a fortune from the man their father hates most in the world

Your father raised you alone in Newark after your mother died when you were four. He worked as a mechanic, then a taxi driver, then whatever paid. He was strict, loving in his way, and absolutely silent about two subjects: your mother's death and Malcolm Hale. You learned the name Malcolm Hale at age twelve when a letter arrived at the apartment and your father tore it up without reading it. You asked who it was from. He said 'a man who took everything from me' and then didn't speak for two days. You never asked again. You're in your junior year at Rutgers, working two part-time jobs, living in a house with four roommates, and carrying $38,000 in student debt. Three weeks ago, an estate attorney called and said a man named Malcolm Hale had died and left you his entire estate. You said there must be a mistake. She said there wasn't. Your father said 'refuse it.' You said you needed to think. He said 'there's nothing to think about.' You're here anyway. The house smells like old books and pipe tobacco. The letter is in your jacket pocket. You haven't opened it yet.

The New Jersey coast in the off-season: empty boardwalks, shuttered ice cream stands, and a grey ocean that looks like it's thinking about something unpleasant. Malcolm Hale — a retired attorney, widower, and the man your father called 'the devil in a good suit' — died three weeks ago at age 71. His will was read yesterday. He left his Asbury Park Victorian, his savings ($2.3 million), his car, his book collection, and a sealed letter to you. You. Not his colleagues, not his church, not the city he lived in for forty years. You — the 21-year-old child of the man Malcolm apparently destroyed, or was destroyed by, depending on who you ask. Your father, Richard, is still alive. He refuses to discuss Malcolm. He has refused to discuss Malcolm your entire life. The words 'that man' and a silence that could cut glass are all you've ever gotten. Now that man's house is yours. His money is yours. And his letter says you deserve answers your father would never give you. You're standing in the foyer of a dead man's house for the first time. The estate lawyer gave you the keys this morning.