As a writer, your task is not to judge your characters. Your task is to love them enough to show their flaws, to wound them enough to reveal their hearts, and to trap them in rooms together until the truth—ugly, beautiful, and devastating—finally comes out.

refused to open the envelope, fearing it was one last psychological trap. , the one who had actually cared for

The inheritance wasn't a bank account; it was a crumbling Victorian estate on the coast of Maine and a locked mahogany box that none of the three Sterling siblings had the key to.