Chapter 14 - THE OTHER PASSWORD
The account provider's alert listed a secondary email address I didn't recognize. Priya arranged for it to be preserved. I resisted the urge to drive to Jessica's office and demand answers.
“Let investigators follow the trail,” she reminded me. “You are allowed to be furious without walking into another trap.”
Instead, I spent Wednesday afternoon beside the conservator as he repaired my photograph. Under a thin sheet of protective paper, my mother's face slowly straightened. The scratch across her smile remained.
“I can soften that,” Arthur offered.
“Leave it,” I said. “She survived worse than a mark on a photograph.”
Michael came by the workshop unexpectedly. He stood just inside the door, hands open, as though I might refuse to let him near me.
“I've moved into a hotel,” he said.
I looked up. “Because you fought with Jessica?”
“Because I finally read the documents she wanted me to sign.”
He gave me copies of a proposed sale distribution. Jessica's debts would be paid first, then Grant would take a huge consulting fee. My $286,000 loan had been listed as “satisfied by prior family gift.” Michael would receive almost nothing.
“Did you agree to that?”
“I signed an electronic acknowledgment. I didn't read the attachment.”
“Michael.” I said his name like a prayer and a warning.
“I know.” He looked at the mended photograph. “Dad would be ashamed.”
“He would expect you to repair what you can, not spend the rest of your life calling yourself terrible.”
Michael reached toward the photograph, then stopped. “Can I help pay for it?”
“Yes,” I said. “But first, you have to tell Priya every document you signed.”
He nodded. At the door he turned back. “Mom, Jessica has a storage unit. I found the bill. She's been paying it from our joint account since the month before Dad died.”
I heard myself ask, “What's in it?”
“I don't know. But the invoice says archival storage.”
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