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“You,” he said. “We’ll need to talk.”
And that was how I found out that the twenty-million-dollar elephant in the room now belonged to me.
An hour later, I stood in the parking lot and watched Diana lose her mind all over again. We’d been through it in the lawyer’s office, where Mr. Bernard Stewart, Esquire, had patiently explained that Mimi’s will—amended to leave me nearly everything, and witnessed by two of his own most trusted associates—would not be easily challenged, although Diana was certainly welcome to try. Then the lawyer had borne the brunt of Diana’s rage. Now it was my mother she was angry at.
“Are you going to tell me you had nothing to do with this? You had power of attorney, she couldn’t have—” She broke off with a strangled noise as Mom shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
Diana’s eyes looked like they might pop out of her head. “How? How could you not?”
“It was on the list.” She paused. “It was the next thing on the list. She kept saying we’d talk about it, but then she declined so fast, it seemed like there was no point. I was probably going to have to go to court.”
“She was so demented that she couldn’t grant power of attorney, but she could still get a lawyer to change her will?” Diana snapped. “I don’t believe you.”
My mother’s face was stony. “You heard Mr. Stewart. He found her totally competent and reasonable, and frankly I’m not surprised. She hid it awfully well, Diana. Even after she’d moved to Willowcrest, she hid it.” She paused, and then her next words came out in a flood. “Which is something you’d know if you’d bothered to visit or just called to ask how she was doing. I would have told you anything you wanted to know. You think I enjoyed this? Caring for her by myself? You think I wouldn’t have liked to have some support? Do you think I’m not as hurt right now as you are?”
Diana shifted her weight and looked at the floor. “I’ve had my own life to worry about,” she said, and her mouth started to tremble. “I’m broke, you know.”
Mom stared. “What are you talking about? I know that Mother gave you—”
“It’s gone. Long gone. All gone.”
“How? How is that possible?”
“William made a... bad investment. Worse than bad. He owes money, a lot of money. I thought if we came for Christmas—”
“That’s why you came?” I said. “To squeeze Mimi for cash?”
She glared. “Of course that’s not the only reason. But—”
“But it’s the main one. That’s why you wanted to get her alone.” Iturned to my mother. “I heard her and William talking. They were trying to figure out how to get Mimi away from everyone so they could talk to her without any of us knowing.”
“That’s not—” Diana squawked, but Mom just sighed and said, “Yes, I figured,” and fixed her sister with a long look. “You could have asked me. Or at least told me. I have money. I would have tried to help. That’s the part I don’t understand.”
Diana let out a humorless laugh. “Of course you don’t understand! Honestly, Dora. No matter how old you get, you’re always the baby, aren’t you? Always oblivious. You have no idea what it was like, growing up here, having to compete with Richard for a teaspoon’s worth of attention because that was all she had to give. He was right, you know. All of us pretending that she was some great mother—such a repulsive fucking farce. He was the smart one, opting out. I wish I could have. But no, I had to show up and make nice and take a bunch of bullshit walks down memory lane, and hope that maybe I could somehow get Mother to be more generous with her money than she was with her love. And for what? Nothing. Twenty million, and she’s left me nothing but a table scrap. Which I guess I should be used to by now, but I’m not.” Another humorless bark of laughter, shriller this time. “And I needed that money.I needed that money.”
“How badly do you need it?” I said quietly.
Diana gave me a cautious look. “What?”
“Badly enough to lie, right? Badly enough that you were trying to get her alone so you could try and get it without anyone knowing? Is that all, or was there more? How far would you have gone?”
“Delphine,” my mother said nervously.
I ignored her, ignored the warning note in her voice. I couldn’t stop. I leaned in close. “Did you need it so badly you would’ve killed for it?” I said, and Diana blanched.
“I’m not listening to this. Not from you.” She turned to my mother. “And I’m challenging this. I don’t care what that man says. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
We rode home in silence. My mother asked me to drive and then said nothing else for nearly thirty minutes, furiously typing on her phone so that the only sound was the haptic clicking of the keyboard. I gripped the steering wheel, thinking about the way Diana’s face had turned pale when I asked if she’d needed the money badly enough to kill for it. Had she? Could she? I didn’t know Diana well enough to answer that—but worse, I was starting to think I hadn’t known my grandmother well enough, either. All this time, I’d taken for granted that her own children loved her as much as I did, if not more, because why wouldn’t they? But they’d known her in a way I never did. They’d seen a side of her that she never showed to me. I thought of the day when she disappeared, the way her face contorted when she saw me with Adam, the way she called my mother a parasite. Even then I couldn’t believe she really meant it. She’s not herself: that was what I’d said, and I’d ignored Richard when he said that she was more like herself than ever. I thought he was just being hateful. What if I’d been wrong?
“Mom?” I said. She didn’t look up, but the typing sound stopped. “Is it true, what Diana said? Was Mimi... a bad mother?”
She sighed. “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”
“What? Why?”
“Because whatever she was to me, and to Diana, she was a good grandmother to you. She always wanted to take care of you. It’s not even surprising that she’d include you in her will. I just don’t know why she had to take it to such an extreme.”
