Chapter 8: Diane
Eleanor reached Diane Reeves by phone that evening.
Diane agreed to come.
She arrived at Eleanor's office two days later, on a Thursday morning, while I was still recovering at home with Clara.
Eleanor had asked if I wanted to join by phone.
I said I'd rather be there in person.
I drove myself.
It was the first time I'd driven since before the birth.
My knee was still bruised from the porch.
I didn't care.
Diane Reeves was a small woman with white hair cut close to her head and the kind of posture that suggested she had spent decades not letting anyone make her feel small.
She wore a navy cardigan and carried a canvas tote bag that had a public library logo on the side.
She looked at me for a long moment when I walked in.
"You look like someone who's been through a great deal in a very short time," she said.
"I have."
"Sit down, then."
I sat.
Eleanor sat across from us both.
"Mrs.
Reeves," Eleanor began, "thank you for coming.
I want to be direct with you about why we asked —"
"I know why you asked," Diane said.
"You want to know about the partnership agreement."
Eleanor paused.
"You know about it?"
"Lucas told me, about a year before he died, that he was worried someone might try to use it against his family someday." Diane set her tote bag on the table and reached inside.
"He asked me to keep a copy of the dissolution paperwork.
The original partnership was formally terminated in 2009.
Witnessed, notarized, filed with the state." She placed a document on the table.
"I've had this in my filing cabinet for fifteen years."
Eleanor picked it up.
She read it.
Set it down.
Looked at Diane.
"This dissolves the partnership completely and unconditionally."
"Yes."
"Whatever Charles Baldwin took from that desk," I said slowly, "is the original agreement without the dissolution attached."
"He would have had to take only part of the record," Eleanor said.
"Either he didn't find the dissolution, or he found it and left it deliberately."
Diane folded her hands on the table.
"Lucas was a good man," she said.
"I met him when he was twenty-six years old and had nothing but a secondhand truck and a better idea than anyone else in the room.
I gave him a small amount of capital and a lot of bad advice, and he was kind enough to remember only the capital." A pause.
"I don't have children.
He was the closest thing."
My throat tightened.
"He left you fifty thousand dollars," I said.
"I know.
His attorney called me last week." She looked at me steadily.
"I don't need it.
I'd like it to go to Clara's education fund, if you'll allow that."
I couldn't speak for a moment.
"He would have loved that," I finally said.
Diane nodded once, as though that settled it.
Eleanor was already reaching for her phone.
"I'm calling Charles's attorney right now," she said.
"With this dissolution document, the partnership claim is worthless.
If Charles files tomorrow, he files knowing the claim is fraudulent." She stood.
"Excuse me."
She stepped out.
Diane looked at me across the table.
"Are you alright?" she said.
"I will be."
"That's the right answer." She tilted her head slightly.
"What's her name?"
"Clara."
Diane smiled — the first real smile I'd seen in days that had nothing calculated behind it.
"Lucas would have been wonderful with her," she said.
"He would have been embarrassingly emotional," I said.
May you like
Diane laughed.
And somehow, in Eleanor's conference room, with a dissolution document on the table and Charles Baldwin's plan collapsing one floor below us, I laughed too.
