Chapter 5: The Longer Conversation
The lawyer's name was Diane Cho.
Her office was on the fourth floor of a building downtown, and she had a small conference table with four chairs and a window that looked out over the parking structure next door.
Nothing about it was impressive.
Everything about it felt serious.
Nathan and I sat on one side.
Margaret sat across from us.
Diane sat at the head of the table with a legal pad and a pen and the kind of stillness that made you want to speak carefully.
"Before we get into the estate matter," Diane said, "Margaret mentioned there may be a counter-threat from your mother.
I'd like to address that first."
Nathan nodded.
Diane looked at Margaret.
"She suggested she has something on you.
Do you know what she means?"
Margaret set her handbag on the floor beside her chair.
"Yes."
She looked at Nathan.
"Your father and I had a falling out about eight years before he passed.
It was serious.
We didn't speak for almost three years."
"I remember," Nathan said.
"He never told me why."
"Because I asked him not to." Margaret's hands were flat on the table.
"I made a mistake during that time.
A financial one.
I borrowed money from a joint account your father and I held together — a small investment account, left to us by our parents.
I borrowed from it without telling him.
I intended to pay it back.
I didn't do it fast enough, and he found out."
"How much?"
"Fourteen thousand dollars.
I paid back eleven before he found out.
I paid the remaining three within the month after he confronted me." She paused.
"We repaired things eventually.
He forgave me.
But Angela knew.
She was the one who found the discrepancy and told him."
"So she's held it over you ever since," I said.
"She's never said so directly.
But yes." Margaret looked at Nathan.
"I want you to hear this from me before she uses it.
What I did was wrong.
I've never pretended otherwise.
But it was resolved between your father and me, in full, before he passed."
Nathan was quiet for a moment.
"Does it affect the legal case?"
Diane answered.
"It doesn't.
The estate matter stands entirely on its own documents and evidence.
Margaret's past financial history with a separate account is irrelevant to what happened to your father's estate."
"Angela will try to use it anyway," Nathan said.
"She can try," Diane said.
"It won't hold up.
But it may create noise." She clicked her pen.
"Which brings me to something I want to ask both of you." She looked at Nathan.
"How far do you want to take this?"
Nathan looked at me.
"All the way," I said.
He turned back to Diane.
"All the way."
Diane wrote something on her pad.
"Then here's what I need you to understand.
The handwritten letter from your father is strong but not conclusive on its own.
The bank account closure is where the real case lives.
The retired bank manager — his name is Gerald Foss — has agreed to provide a sworn statement.
He remembers the transaction because it was unusual.
A large account closure on behalf of a hospitalized account holder.
He says the authorization documents were brought in by your mother."
"Can he prove that?"
"He can testify to it.
We also have the branch's internal records from that period, which we obtained through a formal records request.
The signature on the closure authorization is your father's.
But the handwriting analysis we had done last month—" Diane slid a single page across the table — "suggests significant inconsistency with his authenticated signature samples from the same year."
Nathan picked up the page.
He looked at it for a long time.
"She forged it," he said.
"That is what the analysis suggests.
We are not in a position to state it as fact until we have a second opinion, which I've already arranged." Diane paused.
"If the second analysis confirms the first, we are looking at potential fraud.
That changes the nature of this significantly."
The word sat in the room.
Nathan set the page down.
"She's my mother," he said.
Not as a defense.
More like he was reminding himself of a fact he needed to keep hold of.
"I know," Diane said.
"If this goes where you're saying it could go—"
"It may," Diane said.
"I won't promise you it won't."
He looked at the page again.
Then at Margaret.
"Did Dad know?" he asked.
"At the end — did he suspect what she'd done?"
Margaret was quiet for a moment.
"I think he hoped he was wrong," she said.
"I think that's why he wrote the letter and gave it to me instead of confronting her.
He wanted there to be a record.
But he didn't want to know for certain." She looked at her hands.
"He loved her.
Even then."
Nathan stood up and walked to the window.
The parking structure outside offered nothing.
He stood there anyway.
"She called me four more times last night," he said.
"I didn't pick up."
"Don't," Diane said.
"Not until we know where this is going.
Anything she says to you now could complicate things."
He turned around.
"She's going to come to the house."
"Probably."
"And when she does?"
Diane looked at him steadily.
"You let her in.
You listen.
You say as little as possible.
And you call me the moment she leaves."
Nathan came back to the table and sat down.
"Okay," he said.
His phone was on the table in front of him.
It had been silent all morning.
It rang now.
His mother's name on the screen.
He looked at Diane.
She gave a small nod.
He let it ring through to voicemail.
Three seconds later, the voicemail notification appeared.
He pressed play and held the phone so we could all hear.
Angela's voice came through the speaker, steady and controlled and nothing like the woman who had stood in our kitchen the night before.
*"Nathan.
I've spoken to my own attorney this morning.
I want you to know that I have documentation that Margaret has a history of stealing from this family.
If she pursues anything against me, I will pursue her.
I am doing this to protect what your father built.
I am doing this for you.
Please call me back.
I love you."*
The voicemail ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Diane picked up her pen.
"She has an attorney," she said.
"Good.
That means this is real to her now." She wrote something.
"It also means she's more frightened than she's letting on."
She looked up.
May you like
"She'll come to the house tonight or tomorrow.
Be ready."
