“Meatloaf,” she replies, and my stomach rumbles. It’s one of my favorite comfort foods, and Bethany does a mean one. I expect she’s giving me my last taste of home cooking.
Potatoes dumped, I put the empty pot back on the stove while Bethany pulls milk and butter from the fridge.
She nods toward the kitchen table. “You got some mail today I had to sign for.”
Frowning, I move that way as I shouldn’t be getting much mail at all. Just my stuff forwarded from the address change in Cleveland, but even that was only a slow trickle.
I see the envelope with two green strips left from a certified-mail ticket that had been pulled off. I flip it over and clench my teeth as I see Harlow Alston’s name and return address in the left corner. The envelope is thin and probably contains no more than a sheet or two.
Fuck, that woman moves fast. We just had our “exchange” yesterday when I offended her, her dog almost ate me, and I broke a piece of her furniture.
It’s probably the bill, which I’ll gladly pay.
I run my finger inside to open it up and pull out what is not a repair invoice but a two-page letter from Ms. Alston.
Glancing up, I see Bethany mashing potatoes, so I take the time to read it.
My eyes rove over the words, mostly formal but with enough bite to know she’s still pissed about yesterday.
I start to read the bullet points, and I freeze when I make it to the second one.
I’m the main beneficiary of Brooks’s estate?
My head snaps up, and I look to my aunt. She catches my movement and raises an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
“This attorney said Brooks left his estate to me,” I mutter in disbelief, and read the bullet point again. I skim the rest of the words and summarize the contents for my aunt. “He left me almost everything, including two houses here in Pennsylvania. Looks like he might have left something for my parents, but the bulk to me. The attorney says there are some personal possessions he wanted me to have. And if I don’t want to accept, he wants it to go to charity.”
Bethany stands with the potato masher in her hand—a utensil she certainly went out and bought to stock in my kitchen as I’ve never owned one—surprise etched on her face. “Got to say, didn’t see that coming.”
“So, it’s not just me, then,” I murmur, alluding to the fact I had no relationship with Brooks and clearly, it was obvious to other family members.
“Your dad is going to be upset,” she says quietly, returning her attention back to her task.
I snort, because I’m quite sure he’s assuming he and my mom are the beneficiaries.
Hell, I assumed that.
I expect his calls and texts will pick up in frequency, and I also expect he might even demand I hand some of it over.
Continuing on with the letter, I get to the part where I apparently broke more than just some chair she bought at IKEA, and wince. I have no fucking clue what a Hepplewhite is, but the description eighteenth-century has me thinking it’s going to ding my savings account.
Not a big deal. I was a smart investor when I played for the Eagles, and I’ve lived frugally as a Badger, given that my pay was nothing compared to what I made in the majors.
“Any idea what a Hepplewhite is?” I ask Bethany.
“Furniture,” she replies. “He was a cabinet maker in London but also made other stuff. Sort of like Chippendale, I think.”
Now Chippendale I’ve heard of, and I know this is going to cost me big.
“Why do you ask?”
Pulling out a chair to the kitchen table, I sink into it with a sigh. “Remember when I came home in a bad mood yesterday?”
“Uh-huh,” she replies with a smirk.
She’s smirking because I snapped at her for something, and she laid into me good. It was a lot of “you need to show respect” and “don’t take it out on the one family member who supports you” and “get your head out of your ass.” She put me in my place, and I was overly solicitous the rest of the night as we watched a movie before she went off to bed in my room. I’ve been sleeping on the couch, which is horribly uncomfortable.
“Well, I was in a bad mood yesterday because I went to see this attorney handling Brooks’s estate.”
Bethany stops mashing, giving me her full attention.
“It wasn’t a good meeting. I sort of stormed her office. She had a dog that wanted to rip out my throat. I kicked over a chair and broke it. Apparently, it’s a Hepplewhite.”
“Oh, wow,” she breathes, eyes tender with commiseration, though I’m not sure if it’s for me or the Hepplewhite.
“And apparently, it was a piece handed down through generations.”
“Ouch,” she quips.
“Yeah, ouch,” I agree, silently ruminating if there’s any way to make that better. But it’s not a top priority. I have to decide what to do with Brooks’s estate. “Why would Brooks leave me with everything? We weren’t close in the end. He was close to our parents.”
“Are you sure about that?” Bethany asks, her tone suggesting she knows something I don’t.
“I know he and I weren’t close, so I’m assuming the converse, that he was close with my parents. They’re the ones who divided us. They’re the ones who doted on him, proclaiming him the water walker of the family.”
Bethany puts the masher in the pot and walks over to me. She pats my cheek before taking the chair to my right. “I don’t know what your parents think, as they don’t tell me anything. They know my allegiance to you. And I didn’t talk to Brooks about those sorts of things. We had a fun aunt-nephew relationship. Maybe I should’ve pushed more, but honestly, it was enough to just be there for you. However, I suspect that you and your brother were far more united than divided in relation to your parents.”
“I don’t understand how it happened,” I grumble angrily. I want to blame my parents and Brooks, but no matter what, I’m part of the cause. I could have called him back during the Christmas holidays rather than text him.
Maybe I should’ve tried harder. If I had, I probably wouldn’t be weighed down with this oppressive guilt now that he’s dead.
“What are you going to do?” Bethany asks, nodding at the letter tossed onto the table.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I give her a tortured look. “I don’t know. My ego wants to tell her to give it all away. But I’m curious about the personal things he left me that she mentioned. I think my first order of business, though, is to figure out how to repair her chair.”
“Assuming it can be fixed,” she points out.
“Yeah, assuming,” I mumble.
“Start googling,” she advises and pops up from the chair. “I’ll finish dinner.”
“I need to make a call first.”
Bethany hums a tune while I slide my phone from my pocket and pull up one of the attorney’s emails. Her phone number is linked at the bottom, and I use it to call her office.
I recognize the receptionist’s voice when she answers. “Law offices of Harlow Alston, this is Bonita. How may I help you?”
“Um… yeah, this is Stone Dumelin.” I cut a glance to Bethany, intently mashing potatoes, although I know she’s listening.