Chapter 2

For several seconds after Michael accused me, no one moved.

His question remained between us.

What did you make her sign?

I waited for him to take it back.

To remember the nights he slept while I changed his mother's sheets.

The blood I cleaned from her bathroom floor.

The hours I spent fighting for one more week of home care.

He did not.

Margaret removed her glasses.

"If you intend to challenge the will, Michael, you may do so through your attorney. You will not question my client this way in my office."

"Your client?" Diane repeated.

Her tissue lay crushed beside her hand. Her eyes were dry now.

"Rebecca is the primary beneficiary," Margaret said. "Eleanor instructed me to protect the estate and the documents she left."

Michael slowly released the edge of the table.

"I'm not accusing anyone," he said. "I'm saying my mother was sick. We need time to understand what happened."

He turned toward me.

His voice softened.

"Rebecca, you must be as shocked as we are."

As we are.

Not as I am.

With three words, he placed himself beside Diane and the children.

He placed me on the other side.

"I told you I didn't know."

"Then there's no reason we can't handle this calmly."

Twenty minutes later, Margaret's assistant returned with a freshly printed document.

Michael slid it across the table toward me.

The title read: Temporary Management Authorization.

"This doesn't change the will," he said. "It only lets me continue running the company while the lawyers sort everything out."

Diane leaned forward.

"That company has supported this family for forty years."

"And Dad knows how to run it," Emma added.

Noah said nothing. He turned his phone facedown and looked at me with the same exhausted expression he had worn during Eleanor's final week in the hospital.

I knew what they wanted.

One signature.

Then everyone could breathe again.

Michael had marked the signature line with a yellow tab. The bright square trembled because my hand was shaking.

The first page said he would continue overseeing employees, contracts, and daily expenses.

That seemed reasonable.

Michael had run the company for almost twenty years. I had not stepped inside its offices since Eleanor became too ill to live alone.

My fingers moved toward the pen.

Then I turned the page.

One sentence stopped me.

If I signed, I could not demand records of payments Michael had already approved.

Another paragraph said I could not challenge any company decision made before Eleanor's death.

I read both sections again.

Ten years earlier, before my days were divided by pill bottles and doctor visits, I had managed an office with thirty employees.

I knew how much damage could hide inside an ordinary sentence.

"This isn't temporary," I said.

Michael's mouth tightened.

"Of course it is."

"It says I can't look at old payments."

"There are thousands of payments, Rebecca. You wouldn't know what you were looking at."

He said it gently.

Almost kindly.

That made it worse.

My thumb rubbed the mark the handbag clasp had left in my palm.

Michael had spent years telling people I could handle anything.

Hospitals. Bills. His mother. Our children.

Apparently, the only thing I could not be trusted to handle was information.

"Mom," Emma said, "just sign it for now. You don't even want the company."

She was right.

I had never wanted it.

But Michael wanted me to promise never to look inside it.

I placed the pen on the table.

"No."

The word came out quietly. Diane still recoiled as if I had shouted.

Michael leaned closer.

His cologne carried the same cedar scent it had on our wedding day. For one disorienting moment, I remembered fastening his cuff links that morning because his hands had been shaking.

"Don't turn this into a war," he murmured.

"I didn't write the will."

"But you can decide what happens next."

I looked down at the yellow tab beside my name.

For ten years, every family emergency had ended with someone handing me a form.

Medical consent.

Insurance appeal.

Home-care schedule.

I had always signed wherever they pointed.

This time, I closed the document.

For once, I let the room remain uncomfortable instead of fixing it for them.

Margaret took the document before Michael could push it back toward me.

"There is one more matter," she said. "Eleanor's safe."

Michael's attention shifted immediately.

"What about it?"

"The sealed contents are still inside. Eleanor left specific instructions regarding access."

Margaret turned to me.

"The safe cannot be opened unless Rebecca is present."