Chapter 3 — The Folder

Gerald Marsh’s office was downtown, in an older building with polished brass fixtures and the unmistakable hush of a law practice. He greeted me warmly and set a folder on his desk.

“Before we begin,” he said, “I want you to know your father spoke about you often. He was proud of you in the specific way of a man who doesn’t always find the words for pride but never stops feeling it.”

I stared at the folder. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

He opened it. Dad’s estate was modest — the house, valued at about $340,000, a savings account, a small investment portfolio, his truck, his belongings, and the contracting tools he’d retired two years earlier.

The will divided the house equally among the three of us. His financial accounts, though, were left entirely to me, with a note explaining it was in recognition of the years I’d spent caring for him through his illness.

The rest of his belongings we would divide by agreement, with any disputes handled through a legal process Gerald described in more detail than I could take in that day.