Chapter 2 - THE RULE GRANDFATHER MADE BEFORE HE DIED
Claire did not finish reading with Evan standing over her.
She folded the document back inside the envelope.
“Move.”
“Claire, you don’t understand what that is.”
“Apparently neither does Lily.”
Evan glanced toward his daughter.
That told Claire enough.
“You knew she had it?”
“No.”
“But you knew it existed.”
He did not answer.
Claire took Lily upstairs.
The child’s bedroom looked half dismantled.
Two dresser drawers were empty.
Her winter clothes had already been packed.
Claire stopped.
“When did Dad do this?”
Lily sat on the edge of the bed.
“Yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were at work.”
“You have my number.”
Lily’s eyes dropped.
“Daddy said you agreed.”
Claire sat beside her.
“I didn’t.”
Lily’s mouth trembled.
“He said Aunt Rebecca’s baby matters more because he’s a boy.”
Claire felt something cold move through her.
“He said that?”
Lily nodded.
“And Grandpa?”
The stuffed rabbit turned slowly in Lily’s hands.
“Before he went to the hospital, Grandpa gave me the envelope.”
Claire remembered the final months of Arthur Mercer’s life.
Pancreatic cancer.
Home hospice.
A family moving carefully around the fact that the most powerful person among them was dying.
Arthur had adored Lily.
Not performatively.
He taught her chess.
Let her sit at his desk.
Once fired a landscaper for referring to her as “just the granddaughter.”
“When did he give it to you?”
“The last time we visited him.”
Claire remembered the day.
Evan had spent most of it downstairs with Arthur.
Lily had disappeared into the study for perhaps ten minutes.
Claire had assumed she was saying goodbye.
“Did he tell you what was inside?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Lily looked up.
“He said Daddy might forget something important after he was gone.”
“What?”
“That a family name belongs to girls too.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Downstairs, a door slammed.
Evan was angry.
But Claire was no longer thinking about the envelope alone.
Arthur had apparently predicted this.
Which meant Evan’s obsession with producing a son was not new.
It was something his father had already feared.
Claire opened the document again.
The first page was a letter.
The second was not.
May you like
It was a copy of a trust amendment.
And Lily’s name appeared in the first paragraph.
