Chapter 4: The Lawyer She Called
His name was Gerald Foss.
Mr.
Hale said it the way you say a name you recognize but don't respect.
"He does estate challenges.
Mostly unsuccessful ones, but he's loud and he's slow, and slow costs money even when you're right."
We were sitting in Mr.
Hale's office the following afternoon.
The folder was open between us.
The trust documents.
The transfer records.
Grandpa's original letter of intent, handwritten, witnessed, notarized.
"Can Foss actually break this?" I asked.
"He can try three things." Mr.
Hale counted on his fingers.
"Diminished capacity — claim your grandfather wasn't of sound mind when he drafted it.
Undue influence — claim someone pressured him.
Or procedural defect — find a technical error in the filing." He paused.
"The first two will fail.
Your grandfather's physician signed a competency certificate the same week the trust was executed.
And the only person who spent significant time with him that summer was—"
"Jenna," I said.
"Yes."
I sat with that for a moment.
"They could try to use her against you," Mr.
Hale said.
"Argue she was the influencing party.
Acting on your behalf."
"She was twenty-two.
She didn't even tell me about it."
"I know.
But Foss doesn't need to win.
He needs to make this expensive and uncomfortable enough that you settle." He closed the folder.
"Your mother is betting you'll back down."
I thought about the kitchen renovation.
The housewarming venue.
The credit cards that never got paid down.
"She's been betting that for ten years," I said.
Mr.
Hale almost smiled.
"Then we proceed."
I was in the parking garage when my phone rang.
Dad.
I answered.
"Em." His voice was different.
Quieter than it had been in years.
"I didn't know she called Foss.
I want you to know that."
"Okay."
"I mean it.
I found out this morning."
I unlocked my car and stood beside it.
"What do you want me to do with that, Dad?"
Silence.
"I just — I don't want this to go where it's going."
"Where is it going?"
"She's telling people." He exhaled.
"She called your aunt Carol.
She called the Hendersons.
She's saying you've had some kind of episode.
That the stress of your job has made you — she used the word unstable."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"She's building something," he said.
"I don't know what, but she's building it."
"Are you going to stop her?"
A long pause.
The kind that had its own answer inside it.
"I'll talk to her," he said.
"You've been talking to her for thirty-five years."
He didn't respond to that.
"Dad." I kept my voice level.
"I love you.
But if you call me again to ask me to back down, I won't answer."
I ended the call and sat in the car for a moment.
Unstable.
That was the word she had chosen.
I pulled up my contacts and found a name I hadn't used in two years.
A colleague who had gone through her own estate dispute the year before.
She had come out the other side and once told me, over coffee, that the thing that saved her was documentation.
"Document everything," she had said.
"Every call.
Every text.
Every conversation.
Because when it gets ugly, the person with the cleaner paper trail wins."
I opened a new note on my phone.
*Dad called.
2:47 p.m.
Said Mom contacted Gerald Foss.
Said she is telling family and friends I am "unstable."*
I stared at the word I had just typed.
Then I added one more line.
*She's going to try to make this about my mind instead of her actions.
I need to be ready for that.*
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
*You should know your mother isn't the only one who can make calls.
Back off while you still can.*
