May 13. After last night’s emotional tension I am very tired and I am beginning to wonder if my plan will work out. For months I have lived with the idea of it; the actual execution is a different matter. There are difficulties which I didn’t anticipate. Willett, for one. I have made him swear on the sacred Book that he will carry out my plan, no matter how many misgivings he may have about its legality. Both in mind and heart he is reluctant, but he has sworn. If the time should ever come when these pages are read by an agent of the law, I repeat, this plan is mine alone. Willett and Ethel are acting under compulsion; any blame or criticism must be given to me.
The other difficulty is Rose. I suspect that she drinks, and I know that she has a faulty memory. Since she is to become me, she must learn and learn accurately what I have been doing lately and where I have been and what my little hobbies and weaknesses are. Dependence upon the radio during these last years has made me a baseball fan. Rose is very bored by the game. She simply cannot remember which teams belong in which leagues. Nor can she remember dates and places. I had Willett bring home some road maps and Rose wrote notes in the margin, making a little game of it. I believe this will help her memorize more readily. Our personal relationship is not a friendly one. She respects me, and I am dependent upon her. She is me, and she will be me longer than I will. In its macabre way, the situation is amusing. I cannot laugh out loud, my breathing is uneasy, but I can smile inside. I can weep inside, too. Life these days swings from farce to tragedy and back again, back and forth, with all of us clinging to the pendulum like squirming little puppets. When I look at Willett and see his torment, I almost choke with tears. And then quite suddenly Ethel comes up with one of her exquisitely inane remarks and back goes the pendulum again. It will never stop. One of these days I will release my hold on it, but the pendulum itself will go on swinging and so will Ethel, Willett, and certainly Rose, who swings more violently than anyone.
May 16. This afternoon I went over with Ethel and Willett the details of my plan for what may be the last time. It is, in essence, a simple one. Some people will consider it only as an attempt to defraud the government. Others will see it as I do, an attempt to protect my children from what I consider unjust claims.
I am not by nature interested in business and finance. Interest was thrust upon me by two events: first I inherited all of my husband’s stock, and second, I learned from my doctor approximately three years ago, that I had a bad heart condition which might prove fatal at any time. I told no one about it. Instead, I went directly to my husband’s lawyer. I had everything I owned divided into three equal parts and given to my children — an outright gift, no strings attached.
But there were strings, invisible strings which I discovered later. I will try to explain them simply. According to law I was allowed to give away to each of my children, or anyone else, up to thirty thousand dollars by cash or its equivalent, free of gift tax. Sums beyond that are subject to gift taxes. They are not Highland. The children managed to pay them without sacrificing any of their stock in the factory. The factory is their livelihood. None of them can support themselves, not even Shirley. She is clever enough, but she has to look after her four children.
For a while I felt quite pleased with myself, believing that the division of my property had accomplished a number of things which I thought desirable: there would be no squabbling over money after my death, and above all, the factory would still belong to the family and would continue to support them comfortably if not luxuriously. I became resigned to the idea of my death because I thought my children’s future was taken care of. I had nothing to leave to them; they would not have to pay a penny of inheritance taxes which I consider exorbitant and in certain cases quite unjust.
It was about a year ago when I discovered that my sense of security about the future was founded on ignorance. It happened quietly as important things often do, quietly and without warning. Shirley and I were at home and Shirley was reading one of those obscure secondhand books she likes to collect.
Suddenly she looked up at me and asked me how I was feeling.
I told her I felt quite well, all things considered.
“Your sticking to your diet, aren’t you?”
“I’m half-starved all the time,” I said sharply. “I’ve lost seventy pounds.”
“Have you been to the doctor lately?”
“Last month.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was doing better than he expected.”
“You mean there was an improvement in your condition?”
I told her the truth. “There was no improvement, no. I’m simply not disintegrating as rapidly as he thought I would.”
“Do you suppose you’ll live for a year?”
It was an odd question, but I was not surprised. Shirley is an odd girl, unemotional, except where her children are concerned.
“Would you care if I didn’t?”
“Care? It’s not really a matter of caring.”
“What is it a matter of, then?”
“Taxes.”
“Taxes. What are you talking about? What’s that book you’re reading?”
She told me, then. I won’t attempt to reconstruct her words. I will explain it more personally, as it affects me. If I live another two months, to the middle of July, it will be exactly three years since I divided my property among my children. Three years — that is the arbitrary legal time limit. If I live that long, everything will be well. If I don’t, the property I gave away will be presumed to have been given in anticipation of death, and under those circumstances it will be taxed not as a gift but as an inheritance. This would not apply to accidental deaths or ones that could not be foreseen. But it applied to me. I had disposed of my property in anticipation of death. My doctor knew it; it was a matter of record. A funny law, isn’t it? If I lived three years, not a day more, it would indicate that I hadn’t anticipated death. Yes, it’s quite a funny law.
“This is awful,” Shirley said. “Don’t you see?”
“I see.”
“I can’t afford to pay inheritance taxes without selling some of my stock. You know what that means.”
I knew. Little by little, they’d sell. Little by little, other people would take over the factory. How well I knew.
Shirley was watching me with that half-grim, half-humorous expression she often wears. “I guess you’ll just have to hold out for a year, won’t you?”
“Yes, I guess I will.”
“Do you think you can?”
“Of course.”
No, Shirley, I didn’t think I could. But there were ways.
Devious ways, perhaps. That’s why I couldn’t ask you to be a party to them, you or Jack. It had to be Willett — he loved me more.
The bluebottle fly had returned to the window with a rush of wings, its vigor unabated. Ethel watched it, but she no longer felt it was a part of her. Its incessant buzzing seemed silly, its energy without purpose, and the reckless charm of its existence an illusion.
Willett loved her more, she thought. Yes, it’s true. He loved her too much. I didn’t have a chance while she was alive. Now she’s gone, and when this is all over perhaps the factory will be gone too, and Willett and I can start a new life.
Greer turned a page.
May 18. I am very weary but somehow more hopeful tonight. Everything is settled. Rose is ready to move in at a moment’s notice if anything should happen to me. Ethel has kept the maid, Murphy, out of my room so she will not suspect any substitution when it is made. If it is made. I feel so hopeful that I’m almost convinced it won’t be necessary. If it is, however, Willett has his instructions. In the middle of July it must be established that I am still alive, perhaps by means of some legal action like a will. There should be no trouble about the difference in signatures. Illness has already changed mine so much that I can hardly believe it is mine. Even now, as I write, I look at this hesitant, shaky script and despise it.