Chapter 16: The Pencil

I read the line twice, and the brunch crowd kept staring.

"Your father kept it quiet for decades," Simon said, low. "Nobody told you because nobody was supposed to."

"So she has been living on my property."

"On your trust's property. As a guest of no one."

"Serve her notice," I said. "Thirty days. Not today, not in public. She has had enough stages."

"She'll say it was promised to her."

"By a man who is dead and left it to me," I said. "Let her say it to a judge."

He nodded once, and I turned away from the man dripping on the carpet.

On the Saturday after that, I drove Cora to her retake.

She came down the stairs at seven in a clean blouse with no makeup and a clear plastic bag.

"I packed my own stuff," she said.

I looked at the bag. She had two pencils, a calculator and an ID.

For eleven years, I had packed twelve sharpened pencils, spare batteries and a granola bar for that bag.

I did not touch it.

"Looks right," I said.

"You're not going to check it?"

"Do you want me to?"

She thought about it. "No."

We drove to the district site in silence.

In the lot, she stopped with her hand on the door.

"I have two pencils," she said. "Do you have one more, in case?"

I opened my purse.

At the bottom lay a stubby yellow pencil, sharpened down to the last inch, that I had carried since my own bar exam.

I held it out without a word about where it came from.

She took it, and she looked at it for a second, and her thumb ran along the bite marks.

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