Chương 10
“It’s always about it with you.”
“What?”
“Every year.”
Her words came faster now.
“You roll your eyes when Mom plans things, you joke about the dinners, you act like everyone is ridiculous for caring.”
I remembered dozens of birthdays.
Eleanor’s themed dinners.
Eleanor’s destination weekends.
Eleanor’s thirty-fifth birthday that had somehow involved three separate celebrations.
“You’re right.”
The answer startled both of us.
She went quiet.
“I did roll my eyes.”
I swallowed.
“I thought it was ridiculous.”
“There.”
“But I still came.”
She said nothing.
“I changed shifts.”
I paced along the curb.
“I drove two hours after work once because Mom said it would hurt your feelings if I missed dessert.”
“Sienna—”
“I came when Maya had strep because you said turning thirty was important.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“That was never how our family worked.”
She was silent.
I continued before I could lose the nerve.
“You were allowed to need things.”
“That is such garbage.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“You needed everyone at your birthday.”
“I didn’t ask them to skip the funeral.”
“Did you ask them to go?”
Silence.
The answer arrived before she gave it.
“No.”
A bus stopped across the street.
The doors folded open.
A woman climbed aboard carrying two shopping bags.
“Why?”
I asked.
Eleanor inhaled.
“I thought Mom and Dad had already decided.”
“That isn’t why.”
“You don’t know what I thought.”
“No.”
I watched the bus pull away.
“But I know you.”
Her voice hardened again.
“You think you do.”
“I think if you had told Mom you wanted them at the funeral, they would have gone.”
“Maybe.”
“And you didn’t.”
Another pause.
“No.”
There it was.
Small.
Flat.
Almost honest.
I felt no victory.
Only exhaustion.
“I have a meeting,” she said.
“Of course.”
“Sienna.”
“What?”
“Whatever you decide about Marshall Street, don’t make it about us.”
I looked at the buildings Julian had fought to preserve.
“It already isn’t.”
I ended the call.
For the next three weeks, I learned more about real estate than any dental assistant should reasonably be required to know.
Thomas introduced me to a lawyer who specialized in commercial partnerships.
Her name was Priya Shah, she wore red-framed glasses, and she had the unnerving habit of waiting through silence until people said things they had not intended to say.
At our first meeting, she read the operating agreement while eating almonds from a plastic container.
“You can block the sale.”
“I know.”
“You can also approve it.”
“I know.”
“You can propose amendments.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She looked over the top of her glasses.
“That is why people hire lawyers.”
I almost smiled.
“What kind of amendments?”
“Conditions on the sale.”
“Like preserving the affordable housing agreement?”
“Potentially.”
“Would Bellweather accept that?”
Priya closed the document.
“People accept remarkable things when the alternative is losing an acquisition they’ve spent eighteen months pursuing.”
I leaned back.
“So I have leverage.”
“You have a vote.”
“That sounds less exciting.”
“It should.”
Her voice was dry.
“Leverage makes people stupid.”
She explained that my twenty-eight percent interest did not give me unlimited power.
The other partners could challenge me if I violated fiduciary obligations.
The lender could still force difficult choices.
Bellweather could walk.
The city could refuse revised terms.
Nothing about the situation resembled the clean moral decision people were assigning me online.
I could preserve the commitments and still destroy the project.
I could approve the sale and still negotiate protections.
I could refuse everything and watch the property sink into foreclosure.
When I left Priya’s office, I sat in my car and cried from sheer frustration.
Not grief.
Not even anger.
Frustration.
It felt almost healthy.
The headline had spread beyond Richmond by then.
A national housing newsletter picked it up.
Then a business podcast mentioned the “grieving widow with a controlling stake,” which made me sound like a nineteenth-century heiress with a veil and tuberculosis.
Strangers found my work email.
Some called me a hero before I had done anything.
Others called me a thief for considering conditions on private property.
Dr. Patel had reception stop transferring unknown callers.
One afternoon, he taped a handwritten sign beneath the office phone.
NO COMMENT MEANS NO COMMENT, NOT ASK CARMEN.
Carmen added, ALSO I KNOW NOTHING.
I added, ESPECIALLY CARMEN.
For ten minutes, the three of us laughed harder than the sign deserved.
Then a little girl in the waiting room asked why adults were laughing.
I went into the supply room and stayed there until I could breathe again.
That was how grief behaved now.
It stopped kicking down doors.
It waited behind ordinary ones.
Nathan started coming over on Sundays.
The first time, he brought groceries without announcing himself.
I opened the door and saw two paper bags at his feet.
“I don’t want wine.”
“There’s no wine.”
“What’s in there?”
“Milk, bread, eggs, coffee.”
“You think I can’t buy groceries?”
“I think you still forget.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“Ruth told me.”
“Traitor.”
“She said you bought three jars of mustard and no actual food last week.”
“That was one time.”
“You don’t like mustard.”
“I was distracted.”
He picked up the bags.
“Can I come in?”
I let him.
We did not discuss the funeral that day.
He replaced the dripping washer under the kitchen sink.
I made coffee.
He found Leo’s dinosaur behind the toaster and froze with it in his hand.
Neither of us said anything.
After a moment, he placed it on the counter instead of asking where it belonged.
The following Sunday, he told me Dad had stopped speaking to him.
“Why?”
“Because I told Eleanor she should resign from the Bellweather account.”
I looked up from the sandwich I was making.
“You did?”
“She told me to go to hell.”
“That sounds like progress.”
Nathan gave me a tired smile.
“Dad said I’m destroying the family.”
“What family?”
He stared at me.
May you like
I regretted the question.
Not because it was false.
