Over Her Dead Body(3)
“How is my brother?” I asked Nathan because it would be impolite not to. Nathan’s father was my only brother, and among those people I could endure only in limited doses.
“Dad’s fine,” Nathan replied. “Still gets up at dawn every day to oversee his empire.” He chuckled at his own joke. My brother had some sort of wholesaling business; it bored me to tears to talk about it. But it got his four kids through college, and he seemed to like it well enough. As long as I didn’t have to hear about the latest shipment of whatever from wherever, I was perfectly pleased for him to carry on.
I cleared the plates and put the kettle on, and Nathan took that as his cue to inquire why I had called him. “So you mentioned there was something you wanted to talk to me about?” he said as I put out a plate of store-bought shortbreads. I didn’t like to bake, but I did enjoy a bite of something sweet after supper, and I’d never met a cookie I liked more than Lorna Doone.
“I’m going to change my will,” I announced as I sat back down across from him. I had an estate lawyer—I didn’t need Nathan’s help with this. And he looked appropriately confused.
“Change it how?”
“I’ve been thinking about it and have decided that it doesn’t represent my wishes,” I said, evading the question. What I was about to ask him was bound to be received with some resistance; I thought it best to ease into it.
“Are you asking me to do it?” he asked.
“No, you can’t.”
“Why not?” And it was time to drop my first bomb.
“Because I’m leaving everything to you.”
He opened his mouth to object, but I cut him off. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided it’s the only way.” I was hoping he’d ask, “Only way to what?” but he didn’t take the bait.
“Louisa, if you want to see Winnie and Charlie more often, you should just tell them.”
“Why should I have to goad my own children into coming to see me?” I harrumphed. “Both of them live within driving distance; it’s despicable that they never visit.”
“Because they are ambitious, just like their mother.”
“Are you trying to get a rise out of me?” Nathan knew full well my children were not consumed by ambition—that I would have respected. No, they didn’t come see me because they were selfish, and with more than just their time. I’d never told Nathan all they had withheld from me—it was too upsetting—and I was certain they hadn’t told him, either.
“I am touched that you want to make me your beneficiary,” my nephew said, “but I can’t let you do that.”
I knew what he was thinking. If I left my money to my nephew instead of my children, the family would implode. His siblings would revile him. My children even more so. They would sue. Everyone would hate everyone. Which was not only true, but kind of the point.
“Why do children assume they are going to get everything their parents worked for?” I said. “It’s not like they did anything to deserve it. Plus they already had the opportunity to be rich; why not give another family member a go at it?” I despised the notion that being rich was their destiny simply because they were born into it. They were humans with free will, not fish.
“It’s just the way it works,” Nathan replied. “Besides, getting all your money would ruin me,” he added. “I’d become a lazy, rotten slob.”
“Is that what you think happened to me?” I asked.
“Perhaps a little bit rotten,” he said with a sly smile. “But not lazy or a slob.”
Nathan was the only person who dared to tease me about my character, and I loved him all the more for it. Our closeness was as unlikely as it was inevitable. My husba nd’s dead body had barely grown cold when my kids gallivanted off to their respective colleges in Northern California—Charlie to UC Santa Cruz and Winnie to Stanford. Nathan, less selfishly, had chosen to matriculate at nearby UCLA. When his father determined his childhood room should be repurposed as a home office, my house became Nathan’s refuge for a good night’s sleep and a home-cooked meal—two things my own children had always taken for granted but he appreciated. Nathan and I were the same: ambitious, hardworking, cast aside by those meant to take care of us. Only difference was, he’d made peace with it, whereas I preferred a more biblical eye-for-an-eye approach. I imagine my nephew thought I was petty for wanting to cut my children out of my will, and that, in time, I would come to my senses. But my senses were keen. I knew things he didn’t. And I had made up my mind.
“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?” he asked as the teakettle rumbled, and he got up to tend to it.
“I suppose not,” I replied. There was no sense in forcing the matter. If Nathan wasn’t willing to play the role of heir to my great fortune, my grand exit would have zero fireworks, and what’s grand about that? I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I wanted to do this before I deteriorated into a pitiable old hag. Who else could I leave my money to? I’d thought for sure he’d be the one.
I often thought about where I’d gone wrong with my children. Whose fault was it that they turned out to be selfish ingrates, if not mine? I was their mother. If they exhibited poor character, I had no one to blame but myself. I’d made the mistake of buying into the ravings of the foolish early feminists—You can have it all! Fabulous career! A brood of perfect kids! Family dinner on Friday! Steamy sex on Saturday! But the notion of having it all is a lie. Your children loathe you for indulging other passions besides them—even ones that keep them in diapers. You try to make it up to them with things—a guitar, a trampoline, a horse, those fancy sneakers they wanted—but those things ruin them. Yes, it was my fault they were rotten. But that didn’t mean I owed them anything. Was I vindictive? Maybe. But better vindictive than a sucker.