Chương 8
Dana washed dishes loudly enough to indicate she was not listening.
Arthur said, “Your father was difficult.”
Owen smiled without warmth.
“I’m shocked.”
“He could be generous and impossible in the same hour.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Arthur glanced toward Lily.
“So I’ve noticed.”
Owen did not smile this time.
Arthur rubbed a finger across the cracked strap of his watch.
“He was better with ideas than consequences.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he could buy a building on Tuesday and realize on Thursday that buildings require boilers.”
“My mother said you encouraged him.”
“I did.”
“To spend?”
“To believe we were smarter than we were.”
Owen looked at him.
Arthur continued.
“We bought most of those works before anyone cared. It made us think foresight was the same as intelligence.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Sometimes you are simply early and lucky.”
Rain began tapping lightly against the window.
Not a storm.
Just rain.
Arthur looked at the old ceramic mug near the sink.
“Owen, I thought the trust had been dissolved.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’m trying to understand why.”
“Maybe because that story was convenient.”
“Yes.”
The answer unsettled Owen more than a defense would have.
Arthur leaned forward.
“After your father died, I received a copy of a letter saying Margaret had agreed to settle all family interests.”
“My mother’s letter says otherwise.”
“I know that now.”
“You could have called.”
“Yes.”
“You could have checked.”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked whether I knew I owned anything.”
“Yes.”
Owen stood.
Arthur stayed seated.
Lily stopped writing.
“You don’t get points for agreeing,” Owen said.
“I’m not asking for them.”
“You vanished.”
“I was a coward.”
Dana stopped washing dishes.
Arthur stared at his hands.
“Not because I thought I had stolen from you. I didn’t. I was afraid your father’s mess would reopen things I had spent years putting behind me. My second marriage was ending. I had a tax investigation. Sloane was threatening litigation. Margaret’s settlement letter arrived, and I accepted the version of it that required nothing from me.”
Owen’s voice dropped.
“You let my mother think she was crazy.”
“No.”
Arthur looked up.
“I let her think she was alone.”
The room stayed quiet.
That difference did not absolve him.
It hurt anyway.
Owen walked to the kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator.
Stared inside.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Lily said, “Dad.”
“What?”
“You’re doing the refrigerator thing.”
“I’m hungry.”
“You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t take food.”
Owen shut the door.
Arthur looked toward her.
“What is the refrigerator thing?”
“When he’s mad, he checks the fridge like a new life might be in there.”
“I do not.”
Dana said, “You absolutely do.”
Owen looked betrayed.
For a second, the room loosened.
Then Arthur said, “There’s something else.”
Owen’s smile vanished.
Of course there was.
Arthur reached inside his jacket.
He placed a photocopy on the table.
A letter dated March 2002, six weeks before Benjamin Carter’s death.
The letter was addressed to Arthur.
I cannot keep Owen inside this mess. If anything happens to me, do not hand him the company because a piece of paper says twenty-five. Make him prove he can survive it first.
Owen read it.
Then again.
“What does this mean?”
Arthur said, “I don’t know.”
“Did my father amend the trust?”
“No amendment has been found.”
“Did he want to?”
“Apparently.”
“You knew this existed?”
“I found it last week.”
“Where?”
“My personal files.”
Owen laughed.
There was real cruelty in it.
“Convenient.”
Arthur’s face tightened.
“I thought you should have it.”
“You thought my lawyer should have it.”
“Yes.”
“You could have lost it.”
“Yes.”
“Burned it.”
“Yes.”
“Pretended you never found it.”
Arthur looked at Lily.
“That would have been easier.”
Lily understood before Owen did.
Arthur was not asking to be forgiven.
He was showing them that he had finally chosen not to protect himself.
Rebecca later called the letter “emotionally catastrophic and legally vague.”
Owen said that described most of his family.
The accountants reconstructed the assets slowly.
Six artworks had been legally sold while Benjamin was alive.
Three had been sold after his death under authority nobody could clearly establish.
Four had vanished into private collections before modern databases made tracking easy.
Two properties had been refinanced, transferred, foreclosed, and eventually redeveloped beyond practical recovery.
Several stock accounts had been liquidated during the 2004 settlement period.
But fourteen artworks remained traceable.
Nine were in the Harcourt consignment.
Two belonged to Arthur.
One was in a museum on long-term loan.
Two were held by private collectors who had purchased them years earlier without any apparent knowledge of the dispute.
The numbers became large.
Large enough that Owen stopped asking Rebecca for estimates.
One afternoon she told him the potential claim could exceed forty million dollars.
He laughed.
Then he went to the bathroom and vomited.
Lily heard him.
She did not tell anyone.
Money did something strange to their apartment before any money actually arrived.
Owen stopped complaining about grocery prices.
Then he became embarrassed and started complaining again.
Dana refused to discuss leaving her hospital job.
Lily spent forty minutes online looking at horses for sale, although she had ridden a horse only once and had been terrified.
When Owen discovered the search history, he stared at her.
“A horse?”
“I was looking.”
“Where would it live?”
“I don’t know.”
“We live on the fourth floor.”
“I know.”
“Were you planning to use the elevator?”
“We don’t have an elevator.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed.
Then he sat beside her.
“Don’t do this yet.”
“Do what?”
“Spend it in your head.”
She looked at him.
“You did.”
His face changed.
“Yeah.”
He closed the laptop.
“Yeah, I did.”
Harcourt & Venn proposed mediation.
Rebecca recommended it.
Owen wanted a public trial.
“A trial gives them years,” Rebecca said.
“I’ve already waited years.”
“Lily hasn’t.”
That ended the argument.
May you like
The first mediation lasted nine hours and solved nothing.
Evelyn Marsh sat across the table with two attorneys and Harcourt’s insurer.
