And suddenly memories begin rearranging themselves in my mind, old scenes coming back with new wiring. Margaret asking me to stay after luncheon last Thanksgiving when Ethan had already left. Margaret insisting I keep copies of household documents “for organization.” Margaret placing a hand over mine in the hospital one evening and saying, in that clipped controlled voice of hers, “If a Caldwell man ever disappoints you, do not confuse your silence with nobility.”
At the time I thought she was being eccentric.
Now it sounds more like briefing.
Harlan continues.
“So I arranged my estate accordingly.”
Lauren’s fingers tighten around the baby blanket.
Ethan leans forward. “Mother was sick. She wasn’t in her right mind near the end.”
That almost makes me laugh again.
Margaret Caldwell, not in her right mind, was still more formidable than most men at full strength. Even in the hospital, weak and fading, she had corrected a cardiologist’s assumptions, revised a foundation vote from her bed, and noticed when Ethan left the room to answer a text with his face angled away from the family.
Harlan lifts another document from the folder.