Chương 12
“About what?”
“You.”
Laura felt her stomach tighten.
“What about me?”
“He wanted to call you.”
Laura waited.
“I told him it was after midnight.”
Margaret’s eyes shone now, but she did not cry.
“He said I always had a reason to keep people apart.”
Laura stopped breathing.
“The next morning he had the stroke.”
David whispered, “Mom.”
Margaret looked furious at the sympathy in his voice.
“Don’t.”
He sat back.
Laura remembered the call she had never received.
For eleven years she had accepted Margaret’s account of Thomas’s final days: he was tired, heavily medicated, not really speaking, there was no point bringing a newborn Emma into the hospital until the end.
Laura had arrived twelve hours before he died.
She had held his hand.
He had never opened his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“What good would it have done?”
“It was my conversation too.”
“It never happened.”
“That doesn’t make it yours to erase.”
Margaret flinched.
Laura saw it.
A small movement.
Enough.
“I thought I was protecting everyone,” Margaret said.
“No.”
Laura’s voice was quiet.
“You were protecting yourself from outcomes you couldn’t control.”
Margaret looked at her.
Perhaps nobody had ever said it that way.
Perhaps Margaret had said it to herself every night for eleven years.
Laura could not tell.
David pushed his plate away.
“So what do we do?”
Margaret gave a tired laugh.
“You two have already decided.”
“No,” Laura said.
Both of them looked at her.
“I haven’t.”
She turned to Margaret.
“I’m not signing anything saying Dad lacked capacity. I don’t know that.”
Margaret nodded once.
“I’m also not accepting the amendment as unquestionably valid.”
Her mother’s expression hardened.
“Laura—”
“No. You wanted honesty.”
Margaret stopped.
“I’m going to give Bancroft whatever information I have. David should do the same. You should too.”
“And the letters?”
“All of them.”
Margaret’s face went pale.
“Some are private.”
“They can determine what is legally relevant.”
“You have no right to read my marriage.”
“Then ask whether they can review them confidentially.”
David nodded slowly.
“There are procedures for that.”
Margaret glared at him.
“Thank you, counselor.”
He almost smiled.
Laura continued.
“If Dad wanted restrictions, I’ll live with restrictions. If he wanted five years, I want that known. If he wanted permanent discretion after understanding it, fine.”
“You say that now.”
“I’m saying it while looking at you.”
Margaret held her gaze.
“And if the amendment is invalid?”
“Then we deal with that.”
“You’ll take the money.”
Laura thought about Emma asking for a horse.
She thought about mortgage payments, college tuition, the nonprofit where she worked, the furnace she had postponed replacing last winter.
“Yes,” she said.
Margaret blinked.
Laura almost smiled.
“I’m not going to perform purity for you. If Dad intended me to have an equal share, I’ll accept it.”
“At least that’s honest.”
“Yes.”
“And if he intended otherwise?”
“I’ll accept that too.”
Margaret looked down.
“What about me?”
The question was so quiet Laura almost missed it.
“What do you mean?”
“If the trustee concludes I improperly influenced him.”
Laura studied her mother.
There were possible legal consequences. Removal from her role. Litigation. Reputation. Money.
But Margaret was asking something else.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
Laura almost laughed.
There it was again.
The sentence nobody in their family had been allowed to say.
“I don’t know either.”
Margaret nodded.
They finished dinner badly.
Nobody touched dessert.
Monday morning, Laura spoke with an independent trust attorney in Albany.
The conversation was disappointingly uncinematic.
No declarations.
No instant verdict.
The attorney, Rachel Kim, asked dates, names, document language, whether Thomas had medical evaluations near execution, who drafted the amendment, whether Margaret benefited personally, and what powers the corporate trustee possessed.
After forty minutes Rachel said, “You have questions. That’s what you have right now.”
“Not a case?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Not proof.”
“Correct.”
Laura liked her immediately.
“What should I do?”
“Preserve documents. Don’t coach witnesses. Don’t make accusations you can’t support. Let the trustee conduct its review, and get counsel if they petition the court or if you decide to challenge the amendment.”
“What about my mother?”
“What about her?”
“She pressured my father.”
“That may matter. It may not. Families pressure each other every day. Legal undue influence is more specific than being difficult, persuasive, controlling, or even unfair.”
Laura wrote that down.
Rachel added, “Also, don’t secretly record conversations without getting advice about applicable law and how you intend to use them.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Laura looked at the notes.
“What if I don’t care enough about the money to do this?”
Rachel was quiet.
“Then don’t.”
Laura looked up.
“That’s it?”
“You’re allowed not to litigate.”
“But if something wrong happened—”
“You asked about what you want, not what abstract justice requires.”
Laura stared at the desk.
“I want to know what my father wanted.”
“That may be possible.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then eventually you’ll have to decide how much uncertainty you’re willing to pay to reduce.”
Money.
Time.
Family.
Memory.
All expensive in different currencies.
Before leaving upstate New York, Laura went to the lake house.
Margaret was in the kitchen repairing a drawer.
Of course she was.
It had been sticking for years.
“You’re doing that now?”
Margaret looked up from a screwdriver.
“It finally annoyed me enough.”
Laura put her bag on a chair.
For several minutes they worked on the drawer together because neither knew how to begin anything else.
Margaret had installed one runner backward.
Laura pointed it out.
“I did not.”
“You did.”
Margaret examined it.
Then she sighed.
“I did.”
Laura took the screwdriver.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
Margaret sat at the kitchen table.
Without the wedding clothes and pearls, she looked smaller.
Laura fixed the runner.
The drawer slid closed.
“There.”
“Show-off.”
Laura turned.
It was almost a joke.
Almost.
Margaret had placed a cardboard archive box on the table.
May you like
“The letters.”
Laura looked at it.
