Camille walked past her.
Arthur looked smaller every time she came, which was the thing about hospitals she had never adjusted to — the way they gradually took up space with equipment while the person inside them seemed to diminish. But his eyes still sharpened when they found hers.
“You shouldn’t argue with them,” she said, setting down the bag.
“They drain me,” he said. “You bring joy, darling.”
She laughed. Then she cried. Both within about four seconds.
That evening, he asked everyone else to leave.
And that was when he gave her the box.
The Lawyer’s Office, the Table, and What the Second Envelope Contained
At the funeral, she wore a plain black dress bought on sale. The service was full and formal. Afterward, people gathered at the house. Camille stood near the window.
Deborah crossed the room with a glass in her hand.
“I hope you saved the receipt for that dress.”
The nearby conversations went quiet in pieces, the way rooms go quiet when something has been said that people aren’t sure how to respond to.
“This is your father’s funeral,” Camille said. “Have some respect.”
“Exactly,” Deborah replied. “And after today, the performance is done.”
Norman studied his drink. Alfred looked at the carpet.
For two years, Camille had made herself small because she had believed that dignity was indistinguishable from silence. But Arthur wasn’t there to hold her hand anymore.
So she held herself.
“You got his money, Deborah,” she said. “Try not to lose his decency along with it.”
Someone near the doorway drew a sharp breath. Even Alfred looked down.
Before Deborah could answer, Arthur’s attorney, John, stepped between them.
“Arthur requested the reading to take place directly after the funeral,” he said. “My office. One hour. All of you.”
Deborah smiled like she had been waiting for that sentence.
At the table in John’s office, Camille sat at one end with the cardboard box still unopened in her lap. She had carried it through the funeral and through the gathering at the house and into this room, and she had not opened it because she had promised Arthur she wouldn’t.
The attorney went through the primary estate.
The house, the corporate holdings, the investment accounts, the vehicles, the art collection — all of it to Arthur’s three children.
“The primary estate leaves no monetary assets to Camille,” John said.
Deborah leaned back in her chair. “Nothing?”
“No money.”
