A Family Affair(10)

But had she? She couldn’t remember any longer. It seemed she’d been very happy but too briefly. Maybe she should talk to someone. And say what? That no one loved her? It was too bleak to even think about.

Anna thought the most difficult and grievous part of getting her life back on track was probably going through her husband’s personal belongings and letting them go. That, she thought, would dredge up feelings of loss and saying a painful goodbye, but through the whole process she was as dry as a bone. She dreaded the paperwork of becoming the single adult in a formerly coupled household—the death certificates mailed to everyone from the insurance carrier to the Department of Motor Vehicles, having the house put in her name alone and closing bank accounts.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. All of that took her a couple of weeks and the first of May was on the horizon. The worst part came as a complete surprise. Her attorney informed her, “The will you have in your possession is not Chad’s most recent will.”

“What?” she said, sure she had misheard him.

“Chad updated his will a few months ago and made a couple of changes.”

“Without saying anything to me?” she asked, gobsmacked.

“His changes don’t affect you monetarily.”

“Then what did he change?”

“I’d rather we do this in the office,” he said.

“Larry, come on! You’ve been our lawyer for thirty years! Spit it out!”

“He added a recipient but nothing you held jointly is affected in any way.”

“Who?”

“Anonymous for the time being, until said recipient chooses to reveal their identity.”

“A mistress!” she blurted.

“Not a mistress,” Larry said without missing a beat.

“He went behind my back and named some secret recipient? How could he do that?”

“He could leave his share of the estate to a house for homeless cats if he wanted to. As I said, this will not affect what you inherit, and in all fairness, you could have done the same thing. In fact, now that you’re a widow and on your own, you can do anything you want with your inheritance.”

“Then what does it affect?”

“The half of retirement funds and savings that go to the kids. Instead of being divided into thirds, it will now be divided into fourths.”

When they were younger, when the kids were younger, everything was left to the surviving spouse or, in the event Anna and Chad perished at the same time, the totality of the estate was to go to the kids. When the kids were all over twenty-one, they divided it differently. They left the bulk of their joint holdings to each other but divided half of their individual retirement funds, 401(k)s and such, among the kids. Anna did not have to worry about money. She worried about the identity of that anonymous recipient.

Like a jet engine was lodged firmly in her posterior, she began tearing through Chad’s personal things. They each maintained their own checking accounts and retirement accounts, but she had access to both and didn’t see anything suspicious. They had decided, years ago, to each name their estate attorney as the executor and administrator of the will. When they’d done that, the kids were still in school and didn’t want anything that complicated and time-consuming to fall on their shoulders, plus they’d been close friends with Larry Merton for many years now and trusted him implicitly.

She went through every pocket, every section of every wallet, the briefcase he couldn’t part with after many years, his sporting equipment and backpack, even his fold-up tent. The only thing she didn’t have access to was his work laptop, which went to a colleague who would take over his counseling cases. What information about his clients might be contained therein was sensitive and confidential.

Would he have left thousands of dollars to a client?

The will would be settled quickly; there would be no probate as everything was tied in a nice legal bow but for that one outstanding item—the unknown identity of one recipient. She was not usually left at a complete loss, but this time she certainly was. She would have to tell the kids, but she wasn’t sure how.

“You don’t have to tell them anything,” Larry said. “All that’s necessary is that you inform them that their father left them a portion of his estate in an irrevocable trust. I’ll draw up the papers, give you the amounts, and they can either get their own legal representation or I’ll help them transfer the money into their savings or checking or investment accounts. It’s generous but not big enough to trigger an inheritance tax. I’m also not obligated to tell them how much has been left to you nor am I obligated to tell them that there’s an irrevocable trust, nor in what amount, nor who the trustee is. As a courtesy and with Chad’s permission, I will tell you the trustee is a lawyer who has been commissioned to keep his client’s identity secret. And that’s all I can say.”

Anna had practiced law for twenty years before being called to the bench and even though her specialty was criminal defense and not estate law, she knew Larry was speaking the truth and giving her the facts. The gathering of the family for the reading of the will was not the law; it was often convenient and it made a great motion picture scene. In fact, Larry would invite Anna and the children to his office to sort out the details. It was not necessary for them to even know there was a fourth recipient but Chad had, in the event of his untimely death, agreed that Anna should know, if they were still married at the time.