Chapter 4: Specific Instructions
The envelope contained three documents.
The first was a single handwritten page — a continuation of the letter I had already read.
The second was a legal document, several pages long, with the lawyer's firm name printed at the top.
The third was a photograph I had never seen: Richard and me, taken from a distance, walking in the garden behind the estate.
I was pushing his wheelchair.
He was looking up at me and laughing at something I had said.
I didn't remember the moment, but I recognized the coat I was wearing.
It was from three winters ago.
Someone had taken it without either of us knowing.
I looked up at the lawyer.
"He had someone photograph us?"
"He asked me to arrange it," the lawyer said.
"He wanted a record of what it actually looked like.
He said he didn't trust his own memory anymore."
I set the photograph down on the step between Margaret and me.
She picked it up.
Looked at it for a long moment.
Set it back down without saying anything.
I read the second page of the letter aloud, because it felt wrong to read it silently with her sitting there.
*"Claire — you gave me five years of ordinary life.
Coffee in the morning.
Walks in the afternoon.
Someone who argued with me about the news and never let me win just because I was old.
You never asked me for anything beyond what was agreed.
That is rarer than you know.*
*I am leaving the estate to Margaret because it is hers by right.
She is my blood and I failed her, and property is the only language I have left to apologize in.*
*But I am leaving you something that cannot be put in a will.
I have arranged it through Margaret, and she has agreed.
The details are in the document enclosed.*
*Take care of Emily.
She beats everyone at chess.
I taught her that on purpose."*
My throat closed on the last line.
Margaret reached over and turned to the legal document without asking.
She found a page near the middle and pointed to a paragraph.
"Read that section," she said.
I read it.
Then I read it again.
"This is a trust," I said.
"Yes."
"In Emily's name."
"Set up four years ago," the lawyer said from the doorway.
"He amended it twice.
The final version was signed seven months ago, when he knew the timeline was certain."
"How much?" My voice came out almost inaudible.
The lawyer told me.
I put the document down on my knee.
I looked at the garden through the open front door — the same garden in the photograph, the same gravel path where I had pushed his wheelchair every afternoon for five years.
"He could have told me," I said.
"Any time in five years, he could have said something."
"I asked him that," Margaret said.
"When he contacted me eight months ago, I asked him why he didn't simply tell you what he was planning."
"What did he say?"
"He said that if you knew, you would have spent the last years of his life feeling grateful instead of just living them." She paused.
"He said gratitude changes the way people treat you.
And he didn't want that.
He wanted things to stay exactly as they were."
I looked at the photograph again.
Richard laughing.
Me not knowing anyone was watching.
"He was a strange man," I said.
"Yes," Margaret agreed.
"He was."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then:
"I'd like to meet Emily.
If that's all right."
I looked at her — the silver hair, the plain coat, the hands still holding the handbag carefully.
Richard's eyes looking back at me from a face I had never seen before yesterday.
"She's at school," I said.
"She gets out at three."
May you like
Margaret nodded.
"I'll wait," she said simply.
