She asked what she could do. I told her not to sign the waiver. She said she’d already decided not to, but that she wanted to say it to me directly so I knew.
“Deb either,” she said. “I talked to her this morning.”
“Thank you,” I said. And then, because I needed to say it to someone and she was the person I was talking to: “I’m not just doing this for the money. I want you to know that.”
“I know,” she said.
“It’s — Dad meant to fix something. Between us. He went to the trouble of doing it properly, through a professional, and I want to know that it happened. Even if Vanessa had left me in and this was all straightforward, I’d want to know.”
“I understand,” she said.
“He sent me a text about a fern once,” I said. “Just a picture of a fern. No explanation. That was very him.”
Aunt June laughed, a small wet sound. “God,” she said. “Yes. That was very him.”
## What Vanessa Knew I Knew
I had not told Vanessa directly that I’d met with Mara Chen. I found out Friday that she’d heard anyway — Mara Chen’s office had followed the appropriate procedures, which included notifying the person named as executor in the will. The executor named in Dad’s will was Vanessa.
I hadn’t known this. I’d understood that she’d positioned herself as the family organizer, but I hadn’t known she was the named executor, which was a different thing — a formal legal role that required formal legal responsibilities, including the responsibility to administer the will as written.