Two days after Grandma’s funeral,

my brother walked into her house like he was stepping into a business meeting rather than a mourning home. He didn’t ask how I was coping, didn’t glance at the framed photos still resting on the mantel, and didn’t acknowledge the silence that had settled into every corner of the house. Instead, he immediately demanded to know what was being “divided,” listing assets with a rehearsed precision that made my stomach tighten. The house, the savings, even the small investments Grandma had mentioned only in passing—all of it, in his mind, already belonged to categories and calculations. I tried to excuse it as grief turning people strange, but there was nothing emotional in his voice. It was entitlement, sharpened into certainty.