Chapter 12: Fourteen Alder Lane

"That's not possible," my father said.

He stood over the fallen chair with both hands flat on the table.

"My mother wouldn't have done that to her own son. She was old. She wasn't thinking clearly."

"She was seventy-nine, and she was clearer than any of us," said the white-haired man with the cane. "I was in the room when she signed."

"Uncle, you can't mean..."

"I mean that you wept, Russ. You sat at her kitchen table and begged her to put your name on it, and she said no."

Dad's mouth worked.

No sound came out.

The lawyer waited a polite moment.

"Mr. Tindall, you may sit down."

"I'll contest this."

"You are welcome to try. The will was witnessed by three people and notarized, and I've kept the originals in a safe for ten years."

My mother had not moved since the word hers.

Now she put her handbag on the table, very slowly, and folded her hands on top of it.

"There has been a misunderstanding," she said, and her voice was warm again.

"Marjorie," the lawyer said.

"Hazel is a child. She can't manage a house and property. Surely the sensible thing is for us to hold it for her, as we always have."

"As you always have," I said.

I had not meant to speak.

It came out of me quietly, and everyone looked up.

"You held my money until it was gone. You held my letters for ten years. You held my birthday, Mom. You held all of it, and I got nothing back."

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