Yet tonight he made his way back into the halfway house and climbed the creaking stairs to a room that measured ten by twelve feet and was outfitted only with a cot, a dresser and a metal mirror bolted to the wall.
He stripped off his suit jacket and loosened his tie then lay on the cot, kicking off his shoes. He looked out the window at a dull spray of stars then, lowering his eyes, saw a ridge of clouds in the west slicing the sky in half. The storm. He’d heard it was supposed to be a bad one. Although he himself liked the rain, he hoped there wouldn’t be any thunder, which would terrify many of his patients. But this concern passed immediately from his mind as he closed his eyes. Sleep was all he could think of now. He could taste it. He felt the fatigue ache in his legs. He yawned cold tears into his eyes. And in less than sixty seconds he was asleep.
3
They signed their names a dozen times and became millionaires.
A hundred sheets of paper, filled with scrolly writing, peppered with words like whereas and hereby, sat on the desk before the two women. Affidavits, receipts, tax returns, releases, powers of attorney. Owen, stern and looking very much the lawyer, circulated each document and said, “Duly executed,” every time a signature was scratched upon a sheet. He’d squeeze his notarial seal and sign his own name with a Mont Blanc and then check off another item on his closing sheet. Portia seemed amused at his severity and on the verge of needling him about it. Lis on the other hand-after six years of marriage-had grown used to her husband’s playing Rumpole and paid little attention to his gravity.
“I feel,” she said, “like a president signing a treaty.”
The three of them were in the den, encircling the massive black mahogany desk that Lis’s father had bought in Barcelona in the sixties. For this occasion-the closing of his estate-Lis had unearthed a shellacked découpage poster that she herself had made ten years ago. It had been a decoration for the party following the sale of her father’s business and his retirement. On the left side of the canvas was pasted a photograph of his company’s very first sign, a small hand-painted rectangle from the early fifties, which read, L’Auberget et Fils Ltd. Next to it was a glossy photo of the huge billboard that crowned the company when it was sold: L’Auberget Liquor Importing, Inc. Around the border was Lis’s own diligent, stiff rendering of vines and grapes, done in purple and green marker. The years had turned the shellac coating a deep, sickly yellow.
Although the old man had never discussed the company with his daughters (there was no male heir; the fils was strictly for image), Lis-as executrix of the estate-had learned what an astonishing businessman her father had been. She knew from his frequent absences throughout her childhood that he’d been addicted to his job. But she’d never guessed, until their mother died and the money passed to her and Portia, exactly how much that hard work had amassed: nine million, plus this house, the Fifth Avenue co-op and a cottage outside of Lisbon.
Owen gathered up papers and put them into tidy bundles, labeling each with a yellow Post-it tag marked with his boxy writing.
“I’ll have copies made for you, Portia.”
“Keep them safe,” Lis warned.
Portia tightened her mouth at the motherly tone and Lis winced, looking for a way to apologize. But before she could find the words, Owen lifted a bottle of champagne to the desk and opened it. He poured three glasses.
“Here’s to…” Lis began and noticed the others gazing at her expectantly. She said the first thing into her mind. “Father and Mother.”
Glasses chimed together.
“Practically speaking,” Owen explained, “that’s the end of the estate. Most of the transfers and disbursements’ve been made. We have one account still open. That’s for the outstanding fees-the executrix, law firm and accountant. Oh, and for that other little matter.” He looked at Lis. “Did you tell her?”
Lis shook her head.
Portia kept her eyes on Owen. “Tell me what?”
“We just got notice on Friday. You’re going to be sued.”
“What?”
“A challenge to the bequests.”
“No! Who?”
“That problem with your father’s will.”
“What problem? There a fuck-up someplace?” Portia looked at Owen with amused suspicion.
“Not from me there wasn’t. I didn’t draft it. I’m talking about the problem with his school. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”
Portia shook her head and Owen continued, explaining that when Andrew L’Auberget passed away he’d left his entire estate in trust for his wife. When she died the money went to the daughters, with a small bequest going to his alma mater, a private college in Massachusetts.
“Oh, bless me, for I have sinned,” Portia whispered sarcastically and crossed herself. Their father had often reminisced-reverently and at great length-about his days at Kensington College.
“The bequest was for a thousand.”
“So what? Let ’em have it.”
Owen laughed. “Oh, but they don’t want that. They want the million he was going to leave them originally.”
“A million?”
“About a year before he died,” Lis continued, “the school started admitting women. That was bad enough. But it also adopted a resolution banning gender and sexual-orientation discrimination. You must know all this, Portia.” She turned to her husband. “Didn’t you send her copies of the correspondence?”
“Please, Lis, a little credit. She’s a beneficiary. She had to be copied.”
“I probably got it. But, you know, if it’s got a lawyer’s letterhead on it and there’s no check inside, who pays any attention?”
Lis started to speak but remained silent. Owen continued, “Your father did a codicil to his will, cutting his bequest to the school to a thousand. In protest.”
“The old shit.”
“Portia!”
“When he wrote the chancellor telling him about the change, he said he wasn’t, I’m pretty much quoting, he wasn’t against women and deviates. He was simply for tradition.”
“I repeat, what a shit.”
“The school’s challenging the codicil.”
“What do we do?”
“Basically, all we have to do is keep an amount equal to their original bequest in the estate account until it’s settled. You don’t have to worry. We’ll win. But we still have to go through the formalities.”
“Not worry?” Portia blurted. “It’s a million dollars.”
“Oh, they’ll lose,” Owen announced. “He did execute the codicil during that spell when he was taking Percodan pretty regularly and Lis was spending a lot of time at the house. That’s what the school’s lawyer’s going to argue. Lack of capacity and undue influence by one of the other beneficiaries.”
“Why do you say they won’t win?”
Grim-faced, Lis sipped her champagne. “I don’t want to hear this again.”
Her husband smiled.
“I’m serious, Owen.”
He said to his sister-in-law, “The lawyer for the school? I did a little investigating. Turns out he’s been negotiating contracts on behalf of the school with a company his wife’s got a major interest in. Big conflict of interest. And a felony, by the way. I’m going to offer him four or five to settle.”