“You don’t trust me,” she said.
I didn’t answer that directly. What I said was: “Dad went to the trouble of making sure things were right. I’d like to honor that.”
The call ended. I sat by the window of my hotel room and watched the street for a while, because there wasn’t anything else to do yet.
## The Formal Process
Probate, when it actually begins, has a rhythm that is almost nothing like the drama people imagine. Documents are filed. Notices are published. There are waiting periods. Deadlines pass and new deadlines begin. The estate is an entity that exists in administrative time, which is slower than emotional time and indifferent to it.
Mara Chen had told me the general shape of it. Patricia Rourke, the probate attorney I’d consulted, filled in more details. As a named beneficiary, I would be formally notified when the will was filed. I would have the right to contest anything irregular. I had no immediate power to force a distribution and no one else did either; the executor had obligations, not unilateral authority to give things out however she chose.
I flew back to Portland on Saturday, seven days after my father died.
It felt wrong to leave. It also felt wrong to stay indefinitely in a hotel in a city where I didn’t live, waiting for administrative processes I couldn’t speed up. My job was in Portland. My apartment was in Portland. The version of my life that existed independently of my father’s death was in Portland.