Chapter 19: The Birthday

"...until we have settled this as a family," Dad finished.

"We're not a jury, Phillip," Grandma said. "Open the doors."

"Mother."

"I said open the doors, or I will ask my nurse to call the police, and she is very good at the telephone."

The nurse had her phone in her hand already.

For a heartbeat Dad stood with his back to the double doors and his jaw working.

Then he stepped aside and pulled one of them open, hard enough to bang against the wall.

Nobody walked through it.

They had all sat back down.

"Cadence," Grandma said. "The envelope."

I took it out of my coat.

The seal was broken, and the paper had softened where Luka and I had read it.

I held it out, and Grandma shook her head.

"No. Read it to them. Not the whole thing. They can see the paper afterward. Read the part that matters."

My mouth was dry.

I unfolded the two pages and found the line.

I read it flat, and let the words do the work.

The lake house. Fifty-one percent of the company. My birthday, in March.

Someone gasped.

"What day?" said the uncle. "Whose day is that?"

"Her twenty-first birthday," Grandma said. "March ninth."

The table went quiet, the sound of a great many people doing the same arithmetic.

"Fifty-one percent," said an aunt. "That's control of the company."

"That was my husband's wish," Grandma said. "He built that firm. He wanted his blood to run it."

"Phillip," the aunt said. "You said the shares were yours."

"They are mine in trust."

"In trust for Cadence."

"For a time." He gestured at me, furious. "For a girl who walked in off the street."

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