Chapter 8: What Eleanor Was Holding
Julian came back twenty minutes later.
He had a glass of water.
He set it on the coffee table and sat back down on the sofa.
His face had gone through something while he was out of the room and come out the other side quieter.
"Tell me what she's been using this for," he said.
Richard sat down across from him.
"Control, primarily.
Over me.
Over decisions in the marriage.
Over what I said and didn't say about certain things." He paused.
"Over you, indirectly.
Your inheritance is structured in a way that gives Eleanor significant influence.
That didn't happen by accident."
"She designed it that way," Julian said.
"Her attorney did.
At her instruction.
Twelve years ago, when you were still in school."
Julian looked at me.
"Did you know any of this before tonight?"
"No," I said.
"I knew she didn't want me here.
I didn't know the architecture of it."
He nodded slowly.
"She's going to use the inheritance as a threat.
That's her next move.
She'll tell me that if I don't — if we don't—" He stopped.
Reorganized.
"She'll threaten to contest the structure.
To tie things up legally.
To make the next few years very difficult."
"Can she?" I asked.
"She can try," Richard said.
"But there are things she doesn't know I've done in the last two years." He looked at Julian.
"I've been quietly restructuring.
Working with a different attorney.
One Eleanor doesn't know about."
Julian went still.
"How far along?"
"Far enough.
The core of it is already moved.
She can contest what she wants.
There isn't much left to contest."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I needed it to be complete before she found out.
If you'd known, she might have found out through you.
Not because you would have told her — but because she watches you very carefully.
She always has."
Julian was quiet for a moment.
Then: "She's going to be furious."
"Yes," Richard said.
"She's going to say you betrayed her."
"She betrayed herself," Richard said, "the night she walked into that guest room with a pair of scissors."
Julian looked at me again.
I held his gaze.
"I want to be there," Julian said.
"When you tell her.
I want to be in the room."
"So do I," I said.
Richard looked between us.
"Tomorrow morning, then.
I'll call her tonight and ask her to come to the house."
"Don't tell her why," Julian said.
"I won't."
Julian picked up his water glass.
He turned it in his hands without drinking.
"She's my mother," he said.
Not as an excuse.
Not as a defense.
Just as a fact that had to be acknowledged before anything else could move forward.
"I know," I said.
"This is going to change everything."
"It already has," I told him.
He looked at the wooden box still sitting on Richard's desk.
The letters.
The photograph.
"She held that over him for years," Julian said.
"She used it to control this entire family." He set the glass down.
"And she still found the time to hate you for not being rich enough."
I almost laughed.
It came out wrong — half grief, half something else.
"She's very efficient," I said.
Julian looked at me for a long moment.
Then, for the first time since we'd sat down in that study, he reached across and took my hand.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For all of it.
For what she did to the dress.
For what my father didn't say.
For the six months I knew something was wrong and chose the easier path."
"We can talk about that," I said.
"Later.
After tomorrow."
He nodded.
Outside the study window, the estate was dark and still.
Somewhere across the city, Eleanor was in her sister's house, or back at her own, preparing whatever she planned to say in the morning.
She didn't know that Richard had already moved the pieces she thought she was holding.
She didn't know that Julian knew everything now.
She didn't know that I would be in that room.
May you like
She was walking into tomorrow thinking she still had leverage.
She didn't.
