Chapter 3: The Man Who Wasn't Supposed to Know
My father's brother, Uncle Roy, stepped into the hospital room carrying his hat in both hands.
He was seventy-one years old.
He had not been at the cookout.
He had not been invited.
He looked at me in the bed, then at my husband standing beside it, then at the floor.
"I heard what happened," he said.
"I came as soon as I could."
My husband didn't move from his spot.
"How did you find out?"
"Denise called me." Roy turned his hat slowly in his hands.
"She was scared.
She didn't know what to do."
Denise was our seventeen-year-old cousin.
The one with the phone.
I found my voice.
"She called you?"
"Last night.
She was crying so hard I could barely understand her." He finally looked up at me.
"She told me what she filmed.
All of it.
Not just the — " He stopped.
Pressed his lips together.
"She told me about the kitchen."
My husband pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down facing Roy directly.
"What do you know about the trust?"
Roy was quiet for a long moment.
Long enough that I started to understand the silence wasn't hesitation.
It was grief.
"Your grandfather set it up before he passed," he said.
"You know that part.
What you don't know is that your mother fought it.
Hard.
She hired a lawyer to contest it the same week he died."
"I didn't know that."
"Nobody was supposed to." Roy set his hat on his knee.
"She lost.
The terms held.
The trust transfers permanently to your daughter the day she's born, as long as the birth happens before your daughter turns one — which means as long as your daughter is born at all." He paused.
"Your mother has been the interim trustee since your grandfather passed.
The moment your daughter is born alive and the trust locks, your mother loses control of roughly four million dollars."
The room was very quiet.
My husband said, "How long have you known this?"
"About the trust?
Years.
About what your mother was planning?" Roy's jaw tightened.
"I didn't know she'd go this far.
I thought it was lawyers and paperwork.
I didn't think — " His voice broke on the last word.
He didn't finish the sentence.
"You should have told us," my husband said.
Not angry.
Worse than angry.
Certain.
"Yes," Roy said.
"I should have."
I looked at the monitor beside my bed.
My daughter's heartbeat moved across the screen in a slow, steady line.
She had started kicking again sometime in the night.
I had not slept at all.
"The documents," I said.
"The folder my mother took from the house.
What was in it?"
Roy reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and set a folded envelope on the edge of my bed.
"Copies," he said.
"I made them six months ago.
I didn't know why I did it at the time." He looked at me steadily.
"I think I did know.
I just didn't want to."
My husband picked up the envelope.
He didn't open it yet.
"We need a lawyer," he said.
"I already called one," Roy said.
May you like
"She's in the parking lot.
She's been waiting for you to say that."
