He was only thirty eight years old when a heart attack took him so fast that I still spent nights staring at my phone for a message. I kept waiting for him to say he was leaving late and that I should not wait up for him.
At the funeral, Martha wept inside the church while wearing dark glasses and accepting hugs as if she were collecting on a debt. Two days later, a registered letter arrived from her lawyer notifying me that she would claim the three million dollars she supposedly invested in the office.
She took possession of the business as if she had inherited a kingdom. She moved into the office to demand income reports and started promising that there would finally be order in the company.
Many clients took their files away in less than a week because they did not trust her. Meanwhile, Spencer showed up at my house with two suitcases and a video game console.
“My mom says I can go upstairs now.” he told me as if he were talking about moving a piece of furniture. I let him in to unpack his things, but then I immediately called the police to have him removed.
When they took him back to Martha’s car, she called me screaming that I was an ungrateful opportunist and a widow with no rights. My mother drove from Denver to hug me while my best friend forced me to hire a professional lawyer.
I obeyed her advice without imagining that David had already fought this war before he died. What I found in his office that same week changed everything for my future.
The lawyer I hired was named Diane Faulkner. In the local legal circles, everyone knew her as a woman who never lost a case through carelessness.
Her office was in an old house with bookshelves reaching the ceiling and a silence that forced one to think clearly. She reviewed the documents Martha had sent me in less than an hour before she finally took off her glasses.
“The will is properly drawn up and that money your mother in law gave David does not make her a partner.” Diane told me. She explained that without a partnership agreement, Martha was just an unsecured creditor who would be last in line for any payments.
I should have felt relieved but I did not because I did not want to spend years in court while Zoey grew up amidst lawsuits. I asked Diane for a few days to think before making a final decision.