My brother disappeared when Mum needed care and returned when the house was being sold

Dear Delyara, I cared for Mum through six years of dementia. My brother lived forty minutes away and visited when convenient. He always had reasons: work, children, stress, his own health. I stopped asking. Mum died in May. Last week, when the estate agent valued the house, my brother suddenly became very involved. He questions every cost, wants copies of statements, and says we must make sure the inheritance is divided fairly. Fairly. I know the will says half each. I am not trying to steal his share. But hearing him discuss fairness in the house where I changed Mum’s bedding at three in the morning makes me want to smash something. Yesterday, he said, “We both lost our mother.” True. He lost her too. Grief is not measured in hours of care. Yet some ugly accountant inside me has started counting anyway: six years, missed work, cancelled holidays, thousands of nights he slept while I listened for Mum wandering. I hate what resentment is doing to the brother I used to love easily.