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With love,
Charlotte
I’m baffled. Stupefied. Flabbergasted. What does any of this mean?Whatcondo is all mine?Charlotte’s?And what does she mean Lloyd got it right?Got what right?None of it makes a lick of sense to me, except for one thing. The best thing. The thing hijacking my brain and making my heart explode with hope and excitement: Charlotte closed her note “with love.”With love, Charlotte.The woman I love actively, consciously, purposefully wrote the wordlovewith her own hand in a note tome.
When Charlotte wrote “with love” to me,was she referring to the generalized, societal concept of love—theplatonicform that binds all human souls, including hers and mine, in a vague, spiritual sense? Or did Charlotte use that all-powerful word to let me know, to confess or at least hint, that she’s feeling a personal, intimate,romantickind oflovefor me, specifically? At the very least, was this phrase Charlotte’s way of invitingmeto say those three little words to her? It’s suddenly so clear to me. Without question, I should have told Charlotte I love her on that sidewalk in New Jersey.I fucked up.
Breathing hard, I open the large manila envelope and pull out its contents with shaking hands: two letter-sized documents. The first is a typed legal form with a title at the top that reads, “Transfer of Deed.”What?A quick scan reveals the shocking truth: Charlotte transferred full ownership of her condo to me.Whythe fuck did she do that?
I swap the two papers in my hand and discover the second is a handwritten note, but this time the jagged script isn’t Charlotte’s:
To whom it may concern,
I, Lloyd Graham, leave my apartment to the younger grandson of Althea Martin. I don’t know his full name, but she always called him Auggie. August Martin? I’ve just called an ambulance and don’t know if I’ll be coming back here, so I’ll leave this note on my desk for whoever to find. Please find Auggie and carry out my wishes. He deserves it, more than anyone. I’ll make a quick video to explain further and also so that whoever finds this can verify it was me who wrote it. Thank you, Auggie.
Lloyd
My brain is melting. My heart thundering. My face and neck both feel like they’re engulfed in scorching flames.What’s going on?
I slam my mailbox door shut and jog-walk to the elevator with everything from the box, and then press the call button maniacally at least ten times.
By the time I get upstairs and into my place, I’m out of breath. Feeling sick. I plug in the video camera near my couch, insert the cassette, and sit down—and, suddenly, there’s my grandmother playing piano and singing in Lloyd Graham’s cluttered, chaotic apartment. I watch in abject confusion as my heart does jumping jacks inside my chest. Normally, I’d be thrilled to watch a brand-new clip of Grandma singing, one I’ve never seen before. But this time, the video only serves to baffle and irritate me.Why did Charlotte want me to see this?
All of a sudden, Lloyd’s ashen face appears on the camera’s tiny screen. He looks sickly and pained. “I’m Lloyd Graham,” the old man says. “I’m not feeling so good right now. I’ve got blood coming out of places it shouldn’t be. I’ve called an ambulance. It’ll be here any minute. If I don’t come back, I want to be sure Althea Martin’s grandson, Auggie, gets my apartment. You know, like an inheritance.” He holds up a handwritten paper—the same one that’s now sitting in front of me on my coffee table, right next to the Transfer of Deed form. “I just now wrote this out. It was me. I’ll leave it on my desk for someone to find, along with the camera, so whoever finds it will know to track down Auggie and make sure he gets my place.” He winces in pain. “I always thought I’d go before my best friend, Althea. She was so full of life—always being goofy and dancing around. I always told her I wantedherto have my place when I was gone.” He fights tears. “But Althea passed last week, and now I’m all alone, so I’m leaving my place to her favorite person, Auggie Martin, or whatever his last name is. I should have asked Althea about hisfull name, but it’s too late now. I can’t imagine anyone who’s more deserving than Auggie.” His eyes water. “Auggie, if you see this, thank you for taking such good care of my Althea, your grandmother.My best friend.” His tears flow. “She was the best friend I’ve ever had. My lifeline. An angel sent straight from heaven. And, boy, did Althea love you, son. She loved your mom and brother, too, with all her heart. But she had a special place in her heart for you. Also, it sounds like your mom and brother are good with money. But you’re the one who might need a helping hand, so I’m going to give my place to you, exactly like Althea would have wanted. Thank you for always taking such good care of her. Especially at the end, when you’d sit by her bedside and hold her hand. I watched you reading to her. Singing her all those silly songs she loved so much.” He winces in pain and makes a guttural sound. Wipes the tears from his eyes. “Auggie, you did everything for Althea I wish I could have done for her myself. I wanted to go to her, so many times, but something inside my noggin is broken now, and I just couldn’t do it. Not even for Althea. I’m ashamed of that. I’m sorry, Althea. I let you down. Oh, and Auggie, if you find a hole in my bedroom wall, and you peek through it and see your grandma’s bedroom, I want you to know, I swear to God, it was Althea’s crazy idea to drill that hole. She said so in one of the cassettes. Find it, please. I’d look for it now, but they’re knocking on my door. The ambulance is here, I think. I—” He winces sharply, and the video on the small screen suddenly spirals like the camera is falling. There’s a thudding sound. And that’s it. Everything turns to static, briefly, before turning a solid blue. Lloyd must have dropped the camera. I bet that’s why it was broken with this cassette lodged inside it.
When and how did Charlotte get this final cassette out of Lloyd’s broken camera? How long did she know about its contents and Lloyd’s handwritten will? But most importantly ofall, why the fuck did she even carry out Lloyd’s final wishes at all, when she could have easily destroyed all this stuff, once she found it, and nobody, including me, would ever have known?
I grab my phone with a trembling hand and place a call to the only attorney I know—the guy who also happens to be the smartest person I know. My big brother, Max. He’s a patent and business lawyer, so he doesn’t handle wills and stuff in his practice, but he’s got to know a whole lot more about this sort of thing than me.
“Yo,” Max says in greeting.
“I need some help. Some advice.” I ramble the whole story, and Max sounds as shocked as I feel. I told him about my feelings for Charlotte during my visit at Max’s house, but nothing I told him then could have prepared Max or anyone else, including me, for what I’ve found in my mailbox today.
After hearing me out, Max says, “Okay, let’s take things one at a time. First of all, you can’t transfer real property to someone without their consent. That’s settled law in every state. The recipient needs to sign the transfer paperwork and accept the property. Period. So, as nice a gesture as it was for Charlotte to fill out that form and try to transfer the place to you, Charlotte still owns her place. There’s no doubt about that.”
I sigh with relief. “Thank God.”
“If you tried to enforce the transfer deed in court, you’d lose.”
“Max, you know I’d never do that. I’m not trying to figure out how to enforce any of this. I’m trying to understandwhyCharlotte gave this shit to me, rather than burning it all the second she found it.”
“The handwritten will. Did the dead guy sign and date it?”
“No. He didn’t date it, and he only signed his first name at the bottom. There’s no doubt he wrote it, though, thanks to the video he left. It’s definitely not a fake.”
“I’ve got no doubt he wrote it, but that’s not the legal standard for it to be enforceable. Without a full signature and date, it’s not a legally enforceable will. Period. Does it state his wishes? Seems like it. But under the law, wishes don’t make something enforceable.”
“Even if it’s in his handwriting? I didn’t realize it at first, but it’s the same writing as on a bunch of his other video cassettes.”
“Doesn’t matter. A simple google search would have told you all of this, Auggie. Any will, whether handwritten or typed, isn’t legally enforceable unless it’s fully signed and dated. You didn’t bother to google before calling me?”
“No. I panicked.”
Max chuckles. “I’m sure Charlotte googled. There’s nothing ambiguous about the law on this stuff. It’s black and white.”
A chill races down my back. My brother is right: there’s no way Charlotte didn’t google the fuck out of all this stuff before stuffing it into my mailbox. She had to know she didn’tneedto do this for me, not in a legal sense.So, why’d she do it?
After telling my brother to hang on for a minute, I google the requirements of a handwritten will, just for good measure, and, yup, there it is. Everything Max said. Next, I google the requirements of a video will, and the result is the same: they’re not enforceable. I tell Max what I’ve found, and he says he’s found the same thing.
