Over Her Dead Body(32)

“I didn’t make it to the house while she was . . . y’know . . . still here,” Nathan said. “Her nurse took care of things. I was all the way down in Manhattan Beach; you know what the traffic is like Monday morning.” He said it like an apology, so I tried to reassure him.

“There was no need for you to come,” I said. “It was perfectly appropriate for her nurse to handle things.”

Nathan’s chin trembled. Winnie put a hand on his shoulder.

“Why don’t we go inside and cry it out,” Winnie said, and he nodded.

We pulled our suitcases into the foyer, then followed Nathan into the dining room. He had made a pot of tea—Earl Grey, Mom’s favorite—which we drank from her Wedgwood blue china cups. He had also set out a tray of Lorna Doones—the only cookie my mother ever kept in the house.

“Your mom kept a file with instructions as to how she wanted all this to be handled,” Nathan said as he slid a folder toward us. I hesitated, so Winnie snapped it up.

“She wrote us a letter,” Winnie said, picking a note written on her monogrammed stationery out of the folder. And I suddenly got nervous. Because I knew how she felt about us, about me—and I knew whatever was in that letter was going to sting like a face full of hot sand.

“Go ahead,” I said glumly.

“To my children, family, and friends,” Winnie read aloud, “Simon Redding on Canon Drive is my attorney and will contact you if your presence is requested at the reading of my will, of which he is in possession.” She paused, like she was put off by Mom’s opening sentence. “Courteous of her to get right down to business,” she snarked.

“Do you know this Simon Redding?” I asked Nathan, and he shook his head.

“I had nothing to do with her will,” my cousin said. I thought I sensed a hint of defensiveness in his voice, like “So don’t blame me,” but I dismissed it as paranoia, which I fell into easily these days.

“I don’t wish to be remembered as a shriveled old raisin,” Winnie continued. “If you ever cared about me, you’ll respect my wish for a closed casket and quick funeral.”

“I’ve already been in touch with the funeral home,” Nathan said. “They said they can lay her to rest tomorrow morning.” I nodded my approval. I was eager to get home. The sooner we got this over with, the better. I looked at Winnie to signal her to keep reading.

“Don’t be sad for me, there were many beautiful moments,” Winnie read, then put down the letter.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Well, she signed her initials.” Winnie held up the letter. “I love that she told us how to feel, that’s handy,” she added.

“So this Simon guy has her will?” I asked, and Nathan nodded. “And you haven’t seen it?” Nathan shook his head no, and my stress level ticked up a notch.

“So . . . do we have to call him?” Winnie asked, looking at Nathan.

“I already emailed,” Nathan said, “while you were driving down. He can do the reading right after the funeral if we want.”

“That’s an action-packed morning,” my sister joked. But I wasn’t in a joking mood.

“Is it strange that she hired someone to read her will?” I asked. “I mean, is that even necessary?”

“She probably thought a neutral third party was best,” Nathan replied. “To, y’know, avoid any misunderstandings.”

“How perfectly detached of her,” Winnie said.

“What kind of misunderstandings?” I pressed.

“Leave poor Nathan alone,” my sister chided. “We’re grateful to you for being here,” she told him. “I’m sure she took care of you in her will, but if she didn’t, we will.”

She looked at me for confirmation.

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you for saying that,” he said, then forced a smile.

I had an uneasy feeling. There was something my cousin wasn’t telling us. And knowing my mother, whatever it was, it was going to be a bitch.





CHAPTER 25




* * *



WINNIE


“Where did she die?” I asked Nathan as we (finally!) switched from tea in the dining room to whiskey in the parlor. I had always hated this room, with its high-back sofas and heavy velvet drapes, but it was cozier than the dining room, and the whiskey made it bearable.

“The library,” Nathan said. “Silvia said she passed peacefully in her favorite chair.” I was grateful that it wasn’t me who had found her. We did the dead-body thing with my dad—a second round of it might have put me over the edge.

You would think after our dad died, Mom would have started acting like an actual parent, but she went the other way. Instead of being more present, she all but disappeared. I was a senior in high school, wrestling with college apps, AP Calculus, and crippling grief. Charlie was at UC Santa Cruz, trying to navigate a full course load and the possessive girlfriend who went on to become his possessive wife. Dad had been a wonderful, caring father—he’d helped us with our homework, taught us how to drive, picked us up from parties when we couldn’t drive ourselves. But unfortunately his most impactful legacy was the behavior he’d modeled for Charlie: how to capitulate to a controlling woman. Because it was clear that Charlie had fallen headlong into the exact same trap.