Chapter 8: The Husband
His name was Dominic.
I learned this from the lawyer, who had already heard from his own contacts by the time I called.
Dominic had phoned the law firm that afternoon — not the lawyer who had handled Thomas's will, but the firm's main reception line — asking questions about the estate, the property holdings, and whether any assets were still in the process of being transferred.
"He identified himself as Vivienne's husband and implied he had a stake in the proceedings," the lawyer told me.
"He was politely informed that the estate had been settled and that he had no standing."
"What did he say to that?"
"He said he'd be in touch with his own representation."
I sat with that for a moment.
"Can he do anything?" I asked.
"Legally.
Is there anything he can actually challenge?"
"The will is clean," the lawyer said.
"Two physician assessments, witnessed signatures, no procedural errors.
If he files a challenge, he'll spend money and lose.
A competent attorney will tell him that within ten minutes." A pause.
"The question is whether he has a competent attorney, or whether he has someone who will take his money and string the process out."
"How long could that take?"
"Months.
Possibly longer.
It wouldn't change the outcome, but it would be unpleasant."
I thanked him and ended the call.
I drove home from the blue house in the dark, and I thought about Dominic.
I had met him perhaps a dozen times over the years — Christmas dinners, a birthday party, Thomas's seventieth.
He was the kind of man who talked loudly and listened poorly.
He had opinions about everything and expertise in nothing.
Thomas had been unfailingly polite to him.
I had followed Thomas's lead.
The next morning, he came to the house.
I saw his car from the upstairs window — a silver sedan, parked across the street rather than in the drive, as if he hadn't quite decided yet.
I watched him sit in it for several minutes.
Then he got out.
I went downstairs and opened the front door before he could knock.
He stopped on the front path.
"Ellie." He said it like we were old friends.
"I was hoping we could talk."
"Come in," I said.
He sat at the kitchen table — the same table where Thomas had eaten breakfast every morning for twenty years — and he looked around the room with the assessing look of a man calculating square footage.
"This is a difficult time for all of us," he said.
"It is."
"Vivienne is devastated.
The will was — it was a shock.
I think Thomas wasn't himself at the end.
I think he made decisions he wouldn't have made if he'd been well."
"Two doctors disagreed with you," I said.
He smiled.
Patient.
Practiced.
"Doctors can be wrong."
"What is it you want, Dominic?"
He leaned forward slightly.
"I want what's fair.
Vivienne is his daughter.
His only child.
What she received — a letter — that's not what a father leaves his daughter.
You know that."
"Thomas knew his own mind."
"I'm sure he thought he did." He paused.
"We're prepared to be reasonable.
We're not asking for everything.
A portion of the estate — the house, perhaps, or the property on Calloway Lane.
Something that acknowledges Vivienne's place in her father's life.
That's not unreasonable."
I looked at him across the table.
"Did Vivienne ask you to come here?"
Something moved behind his eyes.
"We discussed it."
"That's not what I asked."
He shifted in his chair.
"We're on the same side here, Ellie.
We both want what's best for the family."
"Dominic." I kept my voice very calm.
"Vivienne came to see me yesterday.
We had a long conversation.
She told me about the accountant.
She told me about the letter you drafted.
She told me about the other lawyer." I watched his face.
"She also told me that she didn't think you were finished."
He was very still.
"I want you to hear this clearly," I said.
"The will stands.
The estate is settled.
If you file a challenge, the lawyer is prepared, the documentation is complete, and you will not win.
What you will do is spend money you don't have — Vivienne told me about that too — on a process that ends exactly where it started."
He stood up.
The practiced patience was gone.
"You have no idea what you're dealing with," he said.
"I think I do," I said.
"I think Thomas did too.
I think that's why he was so careful."
Dominic looked at me for a long moment.
Then he looked around the kitchen one more time — the reading glasses still on the side table, the coffee mug in the drying rack — and something in his expression shifted.
Not softened.
Recalculated.
"This isn't over," he said.
He walked to the front door.
I followed.
He opened it himself and stepped out onto the path.
He turned back once.
"Vivienne will come around," he said.
"She always does."
I closed the door.
I stood in the hallway and listened to his car start.
Listened to it pull away.
Then I called Vivienne.
She picked up on the second ring.
"He came here," I said.
A long silence.
"I was afraid of that," she said.
"What did he say?"
"That you'd discussed it.
That you were on the same side."
Another silence.
Longer.
"I didn't send him," she said.
"I want you to know that."
"I know," I said.
"But Vivienne — I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly."
"All right."
May you like
"Are you safe?"
The silence this time was the longest of all.
