"Trying what?" I asked.
Mr. Ferris slid a folder across the desk instead of answering directly.
"Mr. Whitfield's estate," he said, "totaled just over one point one million dollars. Most of it came from an old engineering patent he held from the 1970s — a small component used in irrigation systems, nothing glamorous, but it paid out modest royalties for decades that he never spent much of. He lived on very little by choice, not necessity."
I felt Jonah go very still beside me.
"His house and the majority of his liquid assets go to his son and daughter, split evenly, as you'd expect," Mr. Ferris continued. "But there's a separate provision. A trust, established in Jonah's name, in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars, designated specifically for his college education, with any remainder after graduation released to him directly at twenty-five."
I couldn't speak for a second.
"There's also this," Mr. Ferris said, and reached into the folder for a single handwritten page, the same careful penmanship from the envelope. "He asked me to read this part aloud, rather than just hand it over. His instructions."
