Part 30
“He let me think he respected my work.”
“He did respect your work.”
“You can’t separate that.”
“No,” Claire said. “You cannot.”
“He gave me the house because he felt guilty.”
“In part.”
“And because he wanted someone to finish Marianne’s plan.”
“Yes.”
“So this isn’t a gift. It’s an assignment.”
Claire’s expression remained controlled, but there was regret in it. “That is one interpretation.”
“It’s the correct one.”
“There may be several correct ones.”
“I’m not one of your trustees.”
“No.”
“Don’t speak to me like a document.”
Claire sat back. “Graham harmed your mother. He concealed it from you. Near the end of his life, he attempted to repair that harm by giving you a property you did not request, along with a responsibility that may damage your career and finances. He also admired you, trusted your judgment, and believed you were the only person who could protect the house from Eleanor’s plans. Those facts do not cancel one another.”
Lily stared at her.
“That,” Claire said, “is what I would say if you were not a document.”
The anger had nowhere clean to go.
Lily walked to the window again. The delivery truck had moved. Traffic flowed as if no one had ever been blocked.
“What plans?” she asked.
“Eleanor had negotiated a private sale of several rooms’ architectural contents.”
Lily turned.
“Which rooms?”
“The morning room paneling. Two mantels. The library shelves. Possibly the conservatory ironwork.”
“She was going to strip the house?”
“She described it as monetizing nonessential assets.”
“The library shelves are built into the walls.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t remove them without destroying the plaster.”
“Yes.”
“Who was buying?”
“A development group working through an architectural salvage company.”
“Does the court filing mention that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It is not helpful to her argument that she should control the property.”
Lily returned to the table and pulled the letter toward her again.
Graham’s typed words blurred. She blinked until they sharpened.
Near the end, he wrote: Lily Hart is not receiving Bellweather because she is Anna’s daughter. She is receiving it because she is the person most likely to tell me when I am lying to myself.
Lily almost laughed.
He had lied to himself until the final paragraph.
She folded the copy.
“I want to sell it,” she said.
Claire’s face did not change. “All of it?”
“Yes.”
“To Eleanor?”
“To anyone.”
“That may become possible after the petition.”
“I want out.”
“I understand.”
“No, you understand the sentence. I want to give her the house and let the roof fall on her.”
“That is also understandable.”
“I want to send her the keys today.”
“Do not.”
“Why?”
“Because anger is not a conveyancing strategy.”
Lily pushed the chair aside. “Then prepare one.”
Claire watched her collect her coat. “Eleanor may not want the house if she cannot remove the interiors.”
“She wants to win.”
“Yes.”
“Then let her.”
Claire’s voice followed Lily to the door. “Your mother tried to stop Graham from abandoning Marianne’s plan.”
Lily’s hand froze on the handle.
“That does not obligate you to finish it,” Claire said. “But do not surrender the property today only because Graham’s guilt has made it feel contaminated. Contamination can be assessed. Some things can be cleaned. Some cannot. You know that better than I do.”
Lily looked over her shoulder. “Please don’t use my profession as a metaphor.”
“That was irritating.”
“Yes.”
“I apologize.”
Lily left anyway.
Outside, rain had begun without drama. She stood beneath the office awning while commuters moved around her, opening umbrellas and complaining into phones.
Her father called.
She let it ring.
Martin called from the restoration firm.
She answered that one.
“We need your project files,” he said.
“You removed my access.”
“I know. We need you to transfer the local notes.”
“They’re on the company server.”
“Your personal field sketches aren’t.”
Lily stepped closer to the wall as a man shook water from his umbrella beside her. “Those are mine.”
“They were made during company time.”
“They include private observations.”
“About the property?”
“About the work.”
“Then they may be discoverable.”
The legal word sounded strange in Martin’s mouth.
“Did Eleanor’s attorney contact you?” Lily asked.
A pause.
“We received a preservation notice.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“You’re asking me to hand over notebooks that may be used against me.”
“I’m asking you not to destroy or withhold anything.”
“I wasn’t going to destroy them.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You implied it.”
“Lily, everyone is nervous.”
She watched rain gather at the curb. “I’m the one who lost my job.”
“You are suspended.”
“My health insurance ends if the board makes it permanent.”
“We haven’t made anything permanent.”
“Are you still working for Eleanor?”
“We have other Whitmore projects.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Martin exhaled. “We are completing existing obligations.”
“Inside Bellweather?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I can’t discuss client locations.”
She laughed once. “Of course.”
“Send the notebooks to counsel. Do not send them directly to me.”
“I need copies.”
“Make copies.”
“They’re three hundred pages.”
“Then scan them.”
“With what? My imaginary office?”
Another pause.
Martin said, “I can authorize reimbursement at a copy center.”
The pettiness of it nearly broke her.
Lily ended the call and stood in the rain after the awning no longer covered her.
That evening, she went to her father’s townhouse.
He opened the door before she knocked. He was sixty-eight, broad through the chest, with gray hair cut too short because he trimmed it himself. He wore a red flannel shirt and held a wooden spoon.
“You’re wet,” he said.
“It’s raining.”
“I noticed.”
The house smelled of onions and cumin. A baseball game played silently on the television. On the kitchen table lay a printed article with Lily’s name in the headline.
She took off her coat.
Her father picked up the article and turned it facedown. “Soup?”
“What kind?”
May you like
“Bean.”
“You made bean soup after asking whether I manipulated a millionaire?”
