I said: “I’m not asking you to feel terrible about your choices. I’m asking you to withdraw the invoice and agree to a fair estate process.”
He pulled the summary sheet toward him and looked at it more carefully. He was doing some kind of internal calculation. I could see it.
“This doesn’t mean you get the house,” he said.
“I know that. I’m not asking for the house. I’m asking for the documented advance to be treated as a documented advance, and for us to settle the estate the way the will says.”
He looked up at me. “The will says fifty-fifty.”
“Yes. Which means after any documented advances are addressed, we split equally. Which is what I’m proposing.”
He said he needed to think about it.
He didn’t withdraw the invoice that day. He said he needed to look at his own records and talk to someone. I told him I understood and I’d be interested to hear what his records showed.
When I walked out of that coffee place I didn’t feel like I’d won anything. I felt like I’d said the things that were true in a voice that didn’t shake, and that was going to have to be enough for now.
A COMPLETE ACCOUNT AND A CONCRETE NEGOTIATION
Two weeks after the coffee shop, Daniel asked for a second meeting.
This time it was at Patricia Okafor’s office, which told me he’d done what he said and talked to someone, and whoever he’d talked to had told him what Patricia had already told me: a demand without a contractual basis was a demand, not a debt.