Chapter 6: The Thing Ethan Had Not Told Me
Her name was Patricia Osei.
She had been a guest of the groom's side — a colleague of someone from Ethan's firm — and she had been seated close enough to the stage to hear Noah clearly and to watch Ethan's face while he listened.
We met the following Tuesday at a coffee shop three blocks from my office.
She was direct in the way that people are direct when they respect your time and their own.
"I want to be clear that I'm not here in any official capacity," she said.
"I'm here because what I saw on Saturday night concerned me."
"Concerned you how?"
"Your son mentioned a will amendment.
A document your father signed before he d*ed, leaving the family property to you." She set her coffee down.
"Did you ever have that document reviewed by an attorney before you signed the transfer?"
"I was twenty-six," I said.
"Ethan was nineteen.
My mother said it was the practical thing to do, that Ethan needed stability, that I was the older one and I could manage.
I trusted her.
I signed what they put in front of me."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"What did they put in front of you?"
"A transfer of title.
Standard form, I assumed."
"Did you read it fully?"
I thought back to that kitchen table.
The week after the funeral.
My mother's voice, steady and certain, telling me this was what Dad would have wanted.
Ethan sitting across from me, nineteen years old and already looking at me like I was solving a problem for him.
"I read it," I said.
"But I was grieving.
I was twenty-six and I was grieving and I trusted my mother."
"Claire." Patricia folded her hands on the table.
"The reason I'm asking is this.
A standard title transfer is one thing.
But if your father's will amendment specifically named you as the primary beneficiary and directed that the property pass to you — and if you were then asked to sign a transfer without being told the full contents of that will amendment — there are legal questions worth examining."
"What kind of questions?"
"Whether the transfer was fully informed.
Whether you understood what you were giving up.
Whether the document you signed was presented to you accurately." She paused.
"And whether anyone had a reason to make sure you signed quickly, before you had time to think about it."
The coffee shop was warm.
I felt cold anyway.
"Ethan knew about the will before the wedding," I said.
"Vanessa told me he had mentioned it to her years ago."
"Yes.
I heard that part too."
"He knew what I had given up.
He knew and he never said anything.
He let me arrange discounted flowers for his wedding and he sat at that table and laughed at my apartment and my job and my—" I stopped.
"Take your time."
"He knew," I said again.
It was the only sentence I had.
"There's something else," Patricia said.
She opened her bag and slid a folded piece of paper across the table.
"I did some preliminary research before we met.
The property your father owned — the family home in Evanston.
It was sold fourteen months ago."
I looked at the paper.
It was a property record.
The address was my childhood home.
The sale price was listed.
The seller was listed.
Ethan James Whitmore.
"He sold it," I said.
"For four hundred and twelve thousand dollars," Patricia said.
"Fourteen months ago."
I set the paper down on the table.
I did not trust my hands with it.
"He never told me."
"No."
"He sold my father's house.
The house my father left to me.
The house I signed away because my mother told me it was the right thing to do." I looked at Patricia.
"And then he came to me six months later and asked me to help pay for the wedding flowers."
Patricia said nothing.
She let the silence do what silence does when the truth is already loud enough.
"What are my options?" I asked.
"That depends on what your father's letter actually says," she said.
"And whether the transfer you signed was fully legal and fully informed." She picked up her coffee.
"I'd like to see the original documents.
Both the will amendment and the transfer you signed.
Can you get them?"
"My mother took the envelope Saturday night."
"I know," Patricia said.
"I saw her."
She looked at me steadily.
"Do you think she'll give them to you?"
I thought about my mother walking past Ethan's table without stopping.
The way she had not looked at Vanessa.
May you like
The way she had carried the envelope out of the room like something she owed a debt to.
"I think," I said slowly, "that she might."
