Chapter 4: The Question About the Will
Daniel called our family attorney the next morning.
I was still in the hospital bed, my hip braced, when he stepped into the hallway to make the call.
I could see him through the small rectangular window in the door — pacing slowly, one hand pressed flat against the wall.
When he came back in, he sat down and folded his hands in his lap the way he used to do as a boy when he had something difficult to say.
"When did you last update your will, Mom?"
"Three years ago," I told him.
"After your father passed.
I had everything reviewed and updated.
The house, the savings, the investment account."
"And Rachel knew about the house?"
I thought about it.
"She knew it existed.
I mentioned once that I planned to leave it to you and the children.
I didn't think it was a secret."
"Did you ever mention the investment account?"
"I don't think so.
Why?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Gordon — that's our attorney — he told me that six weeks ago, someone called his office.
A woman.
She said she was calling on your behalf to ask about the process for updating a will.
She gave your name.
Your date of birth."
The room felt very still.
"I didn't call any attorney," I said.
"I know."
"Daniel—"
"I know, Mom."
He stood again.
He couldn't seem to stay seated.
He walked to the foot of the bed and stood there with his hands on the railing.
"Gordon said the call didn't go further — his assistant asked for a callback number and the woman said she'd call again, but she never did.
He didn't think much of it at the time." Daniel's grip on the railing tightened.
"He thought much of it this morning."
I tried to make sense of what I was hearing.
Seven years.
Seven years of Sunday dinners and birthdays and school plays.
Seven years of small, perfectly placed comments that I had absorbed and ignored and blamed on my own sensitivity.
Seven years of thinking I was imagining it.
I had not been imagining it.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"First, I need you to call Gordon yourself.
Today.
Tell him no one is authorized to make inquiries on your behalf.
Have him note it on file."
"All right."
"Then I need you to think carefully.
Any document you've signed in the last two years.
Anything Rachel may have had access to.
Any time she was in your house alone."
A cold feeling moved through me.
"She has a key."
Daniel looked up.
"She asked for one two years ago.
She said it was in case of emergency.
I didn't see any reason—" I stopped.
"Has she used it?"
"Once that I know of.
I was in the hospital for that knee procedure.
She said she went by to water the plants." I looked at my son.
"The plants were dead when I got home.
I thought I'd just forgotten to ask her to do them."
Daniel took out his phone.
He typed something.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
It was a text to Rachel, and it said only: *Who have you spoken to about my mother's estate?*
We watched the screen together.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Then they stopped.
Then they appeared again.
Then they stopped.
The reply that finally came was not an answer.
It was a question.
*Why are you asking me that?*
Daniel typed back: *Because someone called Gordon's office six weeks ago using Mom's name.*
This time, no dots appeared at all.
The screen stayed blank for four full minutes.
Then Rachel's reply arrived, and it was seven words that told us more than any confession could have:
May you like
*That was just a misunderstanding.
I can explain.*
