Chapter 53 - The Man Behind Lucia’s Letter
Dominic did not call Elias immediately.
He asked Elena to obtain the complete certification first.
I watched him make that decision.
A few weeks earlier, I might have mistaken his stillness for calm.
Now I understood how much anger could live inside a man who refused to let it choose the next action.
Elias’s signature did not state that he owned the claim.
It certified a narrower fact.
That Lucia’s retained interest had been accounted for in the closing reconciliation.
Marianne’s register suggested otherwise.
The lender’s payment record made the certification even more important.
If the obligation had been satisfied, the closing balance and the women’s retained rights should have been addressed together.
Instead, the debt had survived on paper.
The money had moved.
And the women’s interests had been described as resolved.
Dominic read the clause twice.
Then he placed Lucia’s letter beside it.
If someone calls your questions disloyal, ask what your silence would protect.
He looked at Elena.
“Arrange the meeting.”
Elias arrived the next morning with counsel.
He looked at the documents before greeting either of us.
That told me he knew what the room contained.
Dominic remained seated.
“Did you sign this?”
“Yes.”
“Was Lucia’s interest accounted for?”
“I was told it was.”
“By whom?”
“Julian.”
“Did you see the reconciliation?”
“A summary.”
“Did you see the bank records?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Lucia?”
Elias lowered his eyes.
“No.”
Dominic’s hands rested on the table.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then he asked the question I had been waiting for.
“Why did you give me her letter only after we started finding these records?”
Elias looked at me.
I did not rescue him from the question.
“I thought it might help.”
“Help whom?”
His attorney shifted.
Elias held up a hand.
“I wanted you to know she had tried to prepare you.”
“You kept the preparation.”
“I know.”
“No. You kept it while signing a statement that treated her interests as settled.”
Elias’s face changed.
Not because Dominic raised his voice.
He hadn’t.
Because there was nowhere comfortable to put the two facts beside each other.
Nora asked whether Elias had received a fee.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
He gave the amount.
“For what service?”
“Review assistance.”
“What review did you perform?”
Another silence.
“A summary.”
I looked down.
There were so many professional names for not asking.
Review assistance.
Administrative confirmation.
Family coordination.
They made neglect look billable.
Elias agreed to provide his correspondence and payment records.
His attorney made clear that he would need advice before giving further formal statements.
Nora accepted that.
We had not brought him there to surrender his rights.
We had brought him there to stop using ours without examination.
After he left, Dominic stayed in his chair.
I sat beside him.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“Not yet.”
I nodded.
We sat together until he reached for the letter.
“I don’t want every memory of her attached to something he did.”
“Then we make room for the memories that aren’t.”
He looked at me.
“How?”
“Dinner. Her favorite food. A story that doesn’t begin with a document.”
He smiled faintly.
“She hated the way I made coffee.”
“You make terrible coffee.”
“I’ve received conflicting reports.”
“From people you employ?”
His smile widened.
A small thing.
Enough.
That afternoon, my sisters invited me to see their apartment.
Two bedrooms.
A narrow kitchen.
A sofa Lauren had bought secondhand and insisted had character.
Emily called it structural uncertainty.
Madison had made pasta.
Nobody waited for permission to serve it.
I looked around the table.
For years, the photographs in my father’s house had shown three daughters.
Now I sat with them in a place none of us needed him to authorize.
Rebecca wasn’t invited.
That did not make the evening an attack on her.
It made it ours.
Halfway through dinner, Madison asked about the money.
“I’m still finding out.”
“Will you use it for the center?”
“Some might support it. Some won’t.”
Lauren nodded.
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“You expected me to say all of it.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
We laughed.
Then my phone vibrated.
Nora asked me to call when I was somewhere private.
I stepped onto the small balcony.
The original lender had identified two more disputed obligations as satisfied.
The pattern was expanding.
And Julian’s attorney had withdrawn the proposed interim agreement.
“Why?”
“They say the newly raised questions make settlement impractical.”
I looked through the window at my sisters.
“So they’re returning to the deadline.”
“Yes.”
I gripped the railing.
Then Nora added something else.
“The institution holding the closing balance has received a request to move the remaining funds.”
“From Julian?”
“Jointly from Julian and Charles.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
My father had told me enough to begin finding the money.
He had not yet told the people holding it to stop letting him spend it.
