I had known Vanessa for thirty-five years. I knew what she did when she didn’t have an explanation: she moved to terrain where the argument was about character rather than fact.
“I’m not questioning you,” I said, which was not entirely true. “I’m asking to see the complete document. That seems like a reasonable thing to ask.”
“The complete document is what I have,” she said.
“Then I need to contact whoever drafted it.”
“You don’t even know who drafted it.”
“I know his attorney’s name is Mara Chen,” I said.
I wasn’t completely sure how I knew this. I’d heard Dad mention her name once, on the phone, and it had lodged without me deliberately filing it. The human mind keeps things like this, filed under headings you don’t know you have.
Vanessa’s expression shifted in a way that was very small and very informative.
“Dad told me about her,” I added. “He mentioned her when he said he’d gotten his affairs in order.”
“That was just him being dramatic,” Vanessa said. “You know how he was.”
Aunt June said, quietly, from the couch: “Vanessa, maybe Hannah has a point.”
Vanessa turned to look at her, and whatever Aunt June saw in that look, it made her add, even more quietly: “About just wanting to see the whole thing.”
The evening ended without resolution. I drove back to the hotel where I was staying — I’d never lived in this city, had been sleeping in a rental car hotel for four days — and I sat on the edge of the bed with my coat still on and looked up how to find a probate attorney in a city I didn’t live in.