The meeting was more of a formality than anything else. The lawyers had Maggie sign some papers and then handed her a set of keys and a sealed envelope. They told her that Charlotte had left Maggie her house on the outskirts of town ‘with all its contents’. Maggie wondered what they meant by that phrase and really hoped it didn’t mean that it looked like the houses on those reality shows about compulsive hoarders. That thought almost made her miss the condition that Charlotte had set down. If Maggie wanted the house, she had to live there. Charlotte had also left her some money. Not a fortune, but enough for Maggie to finish her education with only one extra job.
“The house,” Maggie asked the bored-looking lawyer she was meeting with, “has it just been left all these years?”