The cupboards: How many times have I told you to never put away more than three plates at a time if you don’t want them to chip?
The stove: How many times have I told you to double-check that everything is off before you leave the kitchen?
They sit at the table. Emerson gives her the papers he needs her to sign, one by one. There’s the acknowledgement that she has been informed of the bequest. There’s an acknowledgement that she has been provided a copy of Charlotte Anne Gibney’s last will and testament (which Emerson gives her now). There’s the acknowledgement that she has been informed of her mother’s various investment assets, which include a very valuable stock portfolio, Tesla and Apple shares being the pick of the litter. Holly signs an employment agreement authorizing David Emerson to represent her in probate court. Rhoda Landry notarizes each document with her big old stamping gadget, and Andrea Stark witnesses them (so that’s what she’s here for).
When the signing ritual is done, the women offer Holly murmured condolences and make their exit. Emerson tells Holly he’d be happy to take her to lunch, except for his pending appointment. Holly tells him that’s perfectly fine. She doesn’t want to eat with Emerson; what she wants is to see the back of him. Her headache is getting worse, and she wants a cigarette. Craves one, actually.
“Now that you’ve had some time to think about it, are you still leaning toward selling the house?”
“Yes.” Not just leaning, either.
“With furnishings or without? Have you thought about that?”
“With.”
“Still…” From his briefcase he takes a small stack of red tags. Printed on them is SAVE. “If you find there are things you want after going through the place, you can put these tags on them. Just peel off the back, you see?”
“Yes.”
“For instance, your mother’s china figurines in the front hall, you might want those as keepsakes…” He sees her face. “Or perhaps not, but there might be other things. Probably will be. Based on my previous experience in such cases, legatees often let things go they later wish they had held onto.”
You believe that, Holly thinks. You believe it to your very soul, because you’re a holder-onner, and holder-onners are never able to understand let-goers. They are tribes that just can’t understand each other. Sort of like vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, Trumpers and Never Trumpers.
“I understand.”
He smiles, perhaps believing he’s convinced her. “The last thing is this.”
He takes a slim folder from his briefcase. It contains photographs. He spreads them out before her like a cop laying out a perp gallery for a witness. She views them with amazement. It’s not perps she’s looking at but jewelry lying on swatches of dark cloth. Earrings, finger rings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, a double string of pearls.
“Your mother insisted I take these for safekeeping before she went to the hospital,” Emerson says. “A bit irregular, but it was her wish. They’re yours now, or will be once Charlotte’s will is probated.” He hands her a sheet of paper. “Here’s the inventory.”
She glances at it briefly. Charlotte has signed, Emerson has co-signed, and Andrea Stark—whose job description, apparently, is Professional Witness—has also signed. Holly looks back at the photos and taps two of them. “This is my mother’s wedding ring, and this is her engagement ring, which she hardly ever wore, but I don’t recognize any of this other stuff.”
“She seems to have been quite the collector,” Emerson says. He sounds a bit uncomfortable, but really not very. Death reveals secrets. Surely he knows this. He has been, as they say, around the block a few times.
“But…” Holly stares at him. She thought—hoped—she was prepared for this meeting, even for touring her dead mother’s house and the museum exhibit guest room, but this? No. “Is it valuable or costume?”
“You’ll have to have it appraised to determine the value,” Emerson says. He hesitates, then adds something less lawyerly. “But according to Andrea, it’s not costume.”
Holly doesn’t reply. What she’s thinking is that this goes beyond deceit. Maybe beyond forgiveness.
“I’ll continue to hold these pieces in the firm’s safe until the will is probated, but you should keep this. I have a copy.” He means the inventory. There have to be at least three dozen items on it, and if those are real gems, the total value must be… Jesus, a lot. A hundred thousand dollars? Two hundred thousand? Five?
Under the patient tutelage of Bill Hodges, she has trained her mind to follow certain facts and not flinch when they lead to certain conclusions. Here is one fact: Charlotte apparently had jewelry worth a great deal of money. Here is another: Holly has never seen her mother wearing any of said sparklers; did not even know they existed. Conclusion: At some point following her mother’s inheritance, and probably after the money had supposedly been lost, Charlotte became a secret hoarder, like a cave-bound goblin in a fantasy story.
Holly sees him to the door. He looks at the china figurines and smiles. “My wife loves stuff like this,” he says. “I think she’s got every gnome and pixie-sitting-on-a-mushroom ever made.”
“Take a few for her,” Holly says. Take them all.
Emerson looks alarmed. “Oh, I couldn’t. No. Thank you, but no.”
“At least take this one.” She picks up the hateful Pinocchio and slaps it into his palm with a smile. “I’m sure the estate is paying you—”
“Of course—”
“But take this from me. For your kindness.”
“If you insist—”
“I do,” Holly says. Seeing that poopy little long-nosed fucker going away will be the best thing that’s happened to her since arriving at 42 Lily Court.
Closing the door and watching through the window as Emerson goes to his car, Holly thinks, Lies. So many lies.
Holly goes back to the kitchen and gathers up her copies of the legal papers. Feeling like a woman in a dream—a new millionaire walks into a bar, so on and so on—she goes to the second drawer to the left of the sink, where there are still Baggies, aluminum foil, Saran wrap, bread ties (her mother never threw them away), and other assorted rickrack. She roots around until she finds a big plastic chip clip and attaches it to the papers. Then she takes a teacup—HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS printed on the side—back to the table. Her mother never allowed smoking in the house; Holly used to do it in her bathroom with the window open. Now she lights up, feeling both residual guilt and a certain naughty pleasure.
Once she sat at a table very like this one, in her parents’ house on Bond Street in Cincinnati, filling out college applications: one to UCLA, one to NYU, one to Duke. Those were her dream choices, worth every penny of the application fees. Places far away from Walnut Hills High, where she had never been known as Jibba-Jibba. Away from her mother, father, and Uncle Henry, too.
She was accepted at none of them, of course. Her grades were strictly mediocre and her SATs were abysmal, possibly because the day she took them she had a migraine headache up top and menstrual cramps down below, both probably brought on by stress. The only acceptance she got was from State U, which was not surprising. Getting accepted at State was like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game. And even from State there was no offer of scholarship help.
Your father and I certainly can’t afford to send you and you’d be paying a loan back until you’re forty, Charlotte said. Back then it was probably true. And if you flunked out you’d still owe the money. The subtext being that of course Holly would flunk out; college would be just too much pressure for such a fragile child. Hadn’t Charlotte once found Holly curled up in the tub, refusing to go to school? And look what happened after she took the SATs! Came home, had a crying jag, spent half the night throwing up!