Chapter 3: What the Folder Held
She didn't move away from the table.
I did.
I walked past her, picked up the folder, and opened it before she could find the words to stop me.
It wasn't hospital paperwork.
It was a will.
Frank's name was at the top.
A solicitor's letterhead beneath it — a firm I had never heard of, registered in the city where Claire lived.
The document was dated eleven months ago.
Eleven months before Frank d*ed.
My eyes moved down the page.
I read the beneficiary line twice.
Claire Margaret Hollis.
One hundred percent.
"This isn't his will," I said.
"It is." Her voice had steadied.
That frightened me more than the shaking had.
"We had a will drawn up together.
Fifteen years ago.
With our own solicitor."
"People change their wills, Ruth."
"Not Frank." I set the folder down.
"Not without telling me.
Not in secret.
Not with a firm in a country he'd only visited twice."
"He told me everything." She crossed her arms.
"He came here because he wanted to.
He wanted to fix things between us.
And when he saw how I was living — how little I had — he wanted to help."
"By cutting me out entirely."
She didn't answer that.
"Claire." I kept my voice level.
"Your father wore that ring for forty years.
He had words engraved on the inside of it.
Words he put there knowing I would find them when I scattered his ashes." I touched the ring where it sat on the table between us.
"He was trying to warn me.
About you."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then explain the folder."
"He changed his mind.
He was allowed to."
"When did he change it?"
"Last year."
"Before or after you invited him to visit?"
Her jaw tightened.
"That's not—"
"Before or after, Claire?"
She turned toward the window.
"He came to me.
I didn't ask him."
"That's not what I asked."
The silence stretched.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the narrow street.
I watched her shoulders and waited.
"He signed it willingly," she finally said.
"No one forced him."
"Then you won't mind if I contact that solicitor myself."
She turned back around.
"You have no right to—"
"I am his wife." The words came out quiet and flat.
"I have every right."
Something moved behind her eyes.
A calculation.
She was deciding how much I already knew and how much she could still control.
"You should go back home, Ruth," she said.
"You're grieving.
You're not thinking clearly."
"I thought very clearly on the flight over." I picked up my bag.
"I thought clearly enough to photograph every page of that document before you noticed what I was doing."
Her face went still.
I walked to the door.
"I'll be in touch," I said.
"Through my own solicitor."
I didn't look back.
But I heard it — the sound of her pulling her phone from her pocket before I'd even reached the front path.
May you like
She was already calling someone.
I needed to find out who.
