Part 2
Fifty-eight percent of the voting shares in Whitaker Family Baking Company.
The transfer had been signed by Evelyn Whitaker four months before her death. It had been witnessed, notarized, entered into the corporate records, and supported by documents Caleb had never bothered to request.
He turned the page back as if the percentages might rearrange themselves.
“Grandma gave you everything?”
His whisper was louder than the ovens.
Diane’s face lost its color. Robert bent toward the agreement, one hand braced against the table. He read without touching the paper, lips moving slightly over his mother’s name.
Nora folded the stained towel and placed it beside the folder.
She did not explain why Evelyn had done it.
Not yet.
The oven timer continued beeping until Robert straightened and crossed the room to silence it. He opened the door, found the bottom tray of rolls beginning to darken, and pulled it out with the nearest pair of mitts. The ordinary action seemed to offend Diane.
“Robert.”
“They’re burning.”
“Leave them.”
“They’re still orders.”
He set the tray on the cooling rack. Two rolls in the rear corner had gone nearly black. He stared at them for a moment before removing the mitts.
Caleb was still reading.
“This isn’t real,” Diane said.
Nora slipped the agreement back into the folder. “It is.”
“You had her sign this when she was sick.”
Nora’s fingers tightened against the cream paper, then relaxed. “No.”
“She was eighty-three. She was taking medication. She had bad days.”
“She also had an attorney.”
Diane looked at Caleb. “Call Martin.”
Caleb did not move.
“Call him.”
Martin Slade had handled routine business matters for the Whitakers since before Caleb went to college. He was not the attorney named on the agreement. That fact seemed to trouble Caleb more than anything else he had read.
He took out his phone and searched for Martin’s number, though it had been in his contacts for years. His thumb missed the name the first time.
Nora retied the ribbon.
Diane watched the knot. “You’ve been waiting for this.”
Nora looked at her. “For you to pack my shoes in a vegetable box?”
“You know what I mean.”
Nora did know. Diane needed the moment to have been engineered by somebody else. Otherwise she would have to consider what it meant that Evelyn had quietly prepared for it.
Caleb raised the phone to his ear and walked into the preparation room. He shut the door behind him, but the upper half contained wired glass, and they could see him pacing between the worktable and the sinks. Flour rose around his shoes.
Robert sat down at last. His broad hands lay flat on his thighs.
“When?” he asked.
“August.”
His eyes went to the folder. “She died in October.”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“She told me some of it.”
Diane’s gaze sharpened. “Of course she did.”
Nora ignored her.
Robert looked older than he had five minutes earlier. His silver hair was still neatly combed, but a strand had fallen against his forehead. “Did she tell me?”
“I don’t know what she told you.”
“She told me she was reorganizing things.” He gave a short, humorless breath. “I thought she meant the estate.”
“She did.”
Diane placed both palms on the table. “This is the estate.”
“No,” Nora said. “The company transfer happened before she died.”
Diane recoiled from the distinction as though Nora were correcting her grammar at a funeral.
Caleb returned with the phone lowered at his side.
“Well?” his mother asked.
“Martin wants a copy.”
“He can come here.”
“He’s in court.”
“He can leave.”
“He can’t leave court, Mom.”
Diane’s mouth opened. Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Nora noticed the gesture and wished she had not. Familiarity survived humiliation in inconvenient ways.
Caleb looked at her. “Who’s the lawyer?”
“Her name is on the last page.”
“I saw the name.”
“Then why are you asking?”
His eyes flickered. For the first time that morning, he seemed aware that the balance of the room had shifted. The awareness did not make him gentler.
“You should have told me.”
Nora almost laughed, but the sound lodged behind her ribs. “You put my shoes in a box.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer you earned today.”
Diane pulled out a chair and sat as if her knees had weakened. “This is theft.”
Robert turned to her. “From whom?”
“From this family.”
“Nora was going to be family,” Caleb said.
The past tense fell between them.
Nora had been wearing her engagement ring since the previous February. It was a small oval diamond that had belonged to Diane’s aunt, reset in a thin gold band. That morning, before arriving at four thirty, Nora had taken it off to knead brioche and placed it in the zippered pocket of her purse. She had not put it back on.
Caleb noticed her bare hand.
“What did you do with the ring?”
“It’s safe.”
“That isn’t yours either,” Diane said.
Robert closed his eyes briefly.
Nora went into the office, retrieved her purse, and removed the ring. She set it on the table beside the stained towel.
Diane stared at it, then at Nora, as though she had not expected obedience to feel like defeat.
Caleb picked up the ring. He held it between his thumb and forefinger without looking at it.
The front bell rang.
All four Whitakers—Nora still thought of them that way, though the company documents complicated the word—turned toward the swinging door. Through the narrow glass pane, Nora saw Luis Ortega, the morning counter manager, standing with his jacket half zipped and his eyebrows raised.
He had worked at the bakery for twelve years. He knew when family arguments were occurring and had developed the useful habit of becoming temporarily deaf.
He opened the door two inches. “The delivery driver wants a signature.”
“I’ll do it,” Nora said.
May you like
Caleb spoke at the same time. “I’ve got it.”
They looked at each other.
