And driving to her lawyer’s office to hear her last will and testament wasn’t helping matters in the least.
Aunt Helen had an apartment in the city she spent most of her time in (until she got sick, and then she said the noise was too much to stomach), but her lawyer’s office was right in town, the lawyer himself being a childhood friend of hers and my father’s. All of us went at the appointed time. It had been less than a week since Aunt Helen had died, and I kept waiting for someone to call April fool.
The lawyer’s office was downtown in a tiny strip mall that held a handful of other boring businesses. He had a receptionist’s desk but no receptionist, and truth be told the place looked like a tornado had torn through it only moments before our arrival. Every surface was covered in manila envelopes, beige folders, stacks of crisp white paper, and coffee-stained mugs. It smelled like the inside of an office supply store (not unpleasant, mostly paper with a little after scent of ink). It was exactly like my aunt to entrust her legal businesses to someone who couldn’t seem to find a dust rag.
“I think he’s actually supposed to be a good lawyer,” Dad said when we’d been standing in the waiting room for a full minute with no signs of life from within the office.
“Mediocre at best, but I get by,” a voice said from behind us, and we all turned as one to find the lawyer—a middle-aged man in a dull gray suit—standing in the doorway, holding a Box O’ Joe and a small tower of paper cups.
“Harry,” Dad said. “It’s been ages!”
“Sal, Marisol,” he said, nodding at my parents. “Are these . . . ? No, they can’t be. These can’t be your kids. They’re grown-ups! They’re real people!”
“They’re half real,” Dad said, smiling, putting his arm around Abe and me and shuffling us forward like display pieces.
“Lottie and Abe. I have heard more about you from your aunt . . . I feel like I already know you. Can I hug you? I kind of want to hug you,” Harry said. He juggled the box of coffee and the cups and put his arms around us both at the same time, a weird sort of hug that was also not weird, kind of nice.
“I brought coffee!” Harry said, pulling away. Abe shot me a look that nobody saw except me, a look I could translate perfectly: too much hugging lately. When will the hugging stop? “You guys are so punctual. I love it. Helen was never on time. One of her more endearing qualities, I guess, depending on how you look at it. Better late than early, she always said, but I’m not sure that would have held up in court.”
Harry set the Box O’ Joe and the coffee cups on the receptionist’s desk, and then he crossed the room to a minifridge where he pulled out a small container of half-and-half. We helped ourselves to the coffee and filed into Harry’s office, which was small and cramped with three extra folding chairs he must have moved in before we arrived. We sat drinking our coffee while he fussed around with folders on his desk, mumbling to himself until he found what he was looking for, holding up a big envelope with a small “aha!”
He straightened up in his chair and put the envelope on the desk in front of him.
“We are here to deliver and fulfill the last will and testament of Helen L. Reaves, one of my most favorite humans on the entire planet,” Harry said, pulling a stack of papers out of the envelope. I noticed him share a brief look with my father, a tiny smile that meant something like: Holy shit, this is hard.
“There’s a whole bunch of legal stuff here, but we can go over that in more detail later,” Harry continued. “Basically, fifty percent of Helen’s estate, including all property and physical possessions not including ones specifically listed later on, will be liquidated and donated to various charities and libraries of her choosing. I’ll take care of all that, of course. It’s a substantial estate, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
We were aware. Aunt Helen was listed officially in the Guinness Book of World Records (that had tickled her to no end; we’d spent about three hours one afternoon taking silly pictures of her holding the book in increasingly weird locations around Connecticut) as the author of the best-selling children’s book series of all time.
And she was gone. Sitting in Harry’s office made it so official. This was an outside party, a lawyer, hired to assist in the divvying up of my dead aunt’s things. It made me feel cheated, tricked, like someone was lying to us—because Aunt Helen couldn’t actually be dead. That just wasn’t possible.
“Right, then,” Harry said. “There are a few people mentioned specifically, all folks I’ve been able to track down easily enough. And then there’s just one name I haven’t been able to find. Has anyone heard of a Mr. Williams? There isn’t a first name here, which is why I’m having a hard time. She was supposed to get it to me but then . . . well, you know.”
“Williams doesn’t ring a bell,” Dad said.
“Well, hopefully he’ll come to me. Sometimes they do.” Harry opened a desk drawer and withdrew a pair of glasses, setting them on his nose and taking a deep breath. “All right. ‘I, Helen Louise Reaves, being of sound mind and body, hereby bequeath the following to my dear, dear brother and my sister-in-law: My remaining liquidated estate, after all previously mentioned articles have been properly distributed. To Sal especially I leave the Picasso and the Van Gogh, because I am sick of telling you not to touch them. Now you can touch them all you want, even though you know it will ruin the paint. And you can take whatever else you like, of course. It’s always been half yours anyway.
‘To Marisol: my 1953 Chevrolet Corvette, because I know you’ve always liked the red seats, and because out of everyone who ever drove it, you were the fastest. Although I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again now, for the last time, it’s kind of a shit car.
‘To my only nephew, Abe, I leave all my books and all my comic books and all my vintage science-fiction magazines, because he is the one who most loved them all. There are a lot of them, Abe, and I know you’ll treat them well.
‘And to my only niece, my wonderful Lottie, I leave my jewelry, my journals (don’t peek until I tell you!), and my laptop. And most important, I leave you these letters.’”
Harry took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose, exactly like people do in movies when they’re trying to think of something to say.
My ears and cheeks were burning. I missed my aunt so much.
Harry reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a thick stack of letters. “She was especially particular about you getting these,” he said to me, and handed them over. I took them carefully, looking at the top one, which was addressed to me in my aunt’s familiar handwriting. They brought a stab of sadness to my chest. I held them hard in my lap, my fingers turning numb.