Part 10
“You used to get carsick when Mom drove,” Claire said.
“Your mother believed speed limits were moral suggestions.”
“She drove slowly.”
“Not in Vermont.”
They passed bare trees, farmhouses, and low mountains still patched with snow. Claire watched Thomas close his eyes.
The memory came without warning: her mother driving all three of them to Maine when Claire was twelve, Thomas in the passenger seat gripping the door handle while insisting he was relaxed. Julian had once told Claire that family memories were unreliable, edited over time to produce loyalty. Perhaps he was right. That did not make the memory false.
Samuel Keene met them at the farmhouse door wearing corduroy trousers and carrying a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST LAWYER.
“You look terrible, Tom,” he said.
“Good morning, Samuel.”
Samuel looked at Claire’s belly.
“You look considerably more productive.”
Claire smiled despite herself.
Inside, the house smelled of woodsmoke and dog hair. Files were stacked on a dining table beneath landscape paintings. Samuel listened while Thomas explained Julian’s claim.
“Superseded orally,” Samuel repeated.
“That is his position.”
Samuel drank coffee. “His position is stupid.”
“Mara says courts prefer more formal terminology.”
“Mara is young.”
“She is fifty-two.”
“Exactly.”
Samuel went to a locked cabinet in his study and returned with a handwritten ledger. The original agreement had been placed in Waltham storage under a restricted access number. Samuel had retained the release key because Thomas had instructed him never to surrender it without confirmation from Claire.
Thomas frowned. “I instructed you to require confirmation from both of us.”
“No. You changed it.”
“When?”
“The week before your surgery.”
Samuel found the entry and turned the ledger around.
Thomas read his own initials.
Claire looked at him.
He took off his glasses. “I don’t remember this.”
“You were frightened,” Samuel said.
“That does not excuse poor documentation.”
“The documentation is excellent. Your memory is poor.”
Claire studied the page. “You gave me sole access?”
“Apparently.”
Samuel pointed at a note below the entry. “Not apparently. Specifically.”
Thomas sat back.
For years Claire had believed every protection originated in his need to retain control. Here was evidence that, at least once, his fear had led him to surrender it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“I intended to after surgery.”
“You did not.”
“No.”
Samuel looked between them and took another drink.
“Families,” he said, “are why sensible people draft documents.”
The storage facility released the folder to Claire that afternoon.
The burgundy leather was scuffed at one corner. The gold state seal remained bright. Claire held it on her lap during the drive back to Boston.
Thomas did not ask to see it.
Halfway home, Claire opened the outer cover.
The signed agreement lay beneath a certification page. Julian’s initials appeared at the bottom of every sheet, dark and confident. His full signature crossed the last page.
Claire remembered him joking about the royal decree.
She closed the folder.
The days before the hearing filled with preparation. Mara rehearsed questions Claire might face. Nathan Pike could challenge her judgment, her anxiety, her reliance on Thomas, and the timing of the ownership transfer.
“Do not try to appear invulnerable,” Mara said.
They sat in a conference room at Mara’s office. Claire had a paper cup of tea she kept forgetting to drink.
“I don’t feel invulnerable.”
“Good. Courts distrust performances of perfection.”
“What should I say about the panic attacks?”
“The truth.”
“That sounds simple.”
“It is not.”
Claire looked toward the window. Below them, buses moved through downtown traffic.
“The truth is I’ve had them since my mother died. They got worse during pregnancy. Julian knew. Sometimes he helped.”
“Say that.”
“He sat on the bathroom floor with me at two in the morning.”
“Say that too.”
“And then he planned to use them.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how both things can be true.”
Mara capped her pen.
“Courts are not very good at explaining how people can be loving and harmful in the same relationship. People are not very good at it either. You do not need to simplify him for the judge.”
Claire turned the paper cup in her hands.
“What if I still love him?”
“That is not a legal disability.”
“It feels like one.”
Mara smiled sadly. “Most attachments do, at some point.”
Thomas prepared differently.
He reviewed board records, financial projections, and communications between Julian and Calder Ridge. He slept at the office twice. On the third night Claire found him there after midnight, standing in a small kitchenette trying to operate a new coffee machine.
“You press the circle,” she said.
“I did.”
“That is the power button.”
“Then why is nothing happening?”
“There’s no water.”
Thomas looked at the empty reservoir.
“The old machine did not require this level of participation.”
“The old machine was connected to plumbing.”
“Progress is exhausting.”
Claire filled the reservoir.
On his desk lay a printed copy of Julian’s emergency petition, covered in notes.
“You need to stop reading that.”
“I found three factual inconsistencies.”
“Mara found them too.”
“She missed the date of your second prenatal appointment.”
“She did not.”
Thomas looked offended. “It is not in her summary.”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“It contradicts his timeline.”
“It contradicts it by two hours.”
“Two hours are time.”
Claire waited for the coffee machine to warm.
“Dad.”
He removed his glasses.
“I need you not to take over in court.”
“I am a witness.”
“You are also you.”
“I have been me for some time.”
“You answer questions no one asked. You correct people when they are still speaking. You look at Julian like you’re considering where to bury him.”
“I have never considered that.”
“You looked at the garden yesterday after Nathan called.”
“The hydrangeas need pruning.”
“In February?”
Thomas sat down.
Claire placed the coffee in front of him.
“I know you want to protect me,” she said. “But if you speak for me, you help him.”
He stared at the cup.
May you like
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
