She said: “If the estate hasn’t been formally opened yet, and you haven’t seen the complete instrument, and you’re being asked to agree that you understand a distribution that was described to you informally — I would think carefully before signing that.”
I thought carefully. I did not sign.
Neither did Aunt June. Neither did Deb.
Theo, Vanessa’s husband, apparently also chose not to sign, which I only found out later, which told me something about Theo that I hadn’t known before.
## Theo
Vanessa and Theo had been married for eleven years. He was quiet in the way that partners of very organized people sometimes become — not without opinions, but selective about when to offer them, having learned over time which situations invited his input and which did not.
I didn’t know him particularly well. We’d had enough holidays together to reach a comfortable familiarity, but nothing deeper. He was good at fixing things, good at barbecuing, and had once spent twenty minutes explaining the offside rule in soccer to me at Thanksgiving, which I did not ask for and did not retain.
After I found out he hadn’t signed the waiver, I thought about the Tuesday evening reading differently. Theo had been standing in the kitchen doorway. He’d heard everything. He’d seen me count the page numbers. He’d heard Vanessa’s explanation about formatting.
He hadn’t said anything. Not that night, not in the days after, not to me. But he hadn’t signed the document his wife had drafted and was distributing.