“I refused to sign before Nathaniel died.”
Vivian blinked.
“Why?”
Ruby stared.
“Because he wanted to give Naomi twenty percent and call it a gift.”
Silence.
James looked toward Ruby with something like respect.
She continued.
“I told him if it belonged to Leon, he had no right to make himself generous with it.”
Vivian’s expression changed.
That was not the Ruby she had invented.
The grasping widow.
The woman waiting beside the family business with a child and a surname.
Ruby continued.
“I also told him I did not know whether twenty percent was right.”
“So I asked for outside accounting.”
“Daddy agreed?”
“Eventually.”
James nodded.
“The bank trust department commissioned it.”
The man in the light gray suit opened his briefcase.
Thomas Greene, Citizens Savings trust officer.
He produced a report.
The independent valuation concluded that Leon’s unsettled capital, adjusted through Nathaniel’s later reinvestments, supported a present claim roughly equivalent to eighteen percent of company value.
Not twenty-five.
Not zero.
Nathaniel’s plan rounded it to twenty percent.
Why upward?
Partly because of uncertainty.
Partly because he wanted to account for profit distributions Leon’s estate never received between 1966 and 1968.
Vivian stared.
“What does this mean for my twenty?”
James answered immediately.
“Nothing.”
She looked surprised.
“Your shares remain yours.”
“Nathaniel’s eighty is divided under his estate plan.”
“How?”
James looked toward Naomi.
Then back.
“Thirty percent to you.”
Vivian froze.
“Personally?”
“Yes.”
Her total would become fifty percent.
She stared.
“Patricia?”
“Twenty percent.”
Patricia gasped.
She had expected less.
James continued.
“Twenty percent into the Leon Carter Descendant Trust for Naomi.”
Ruby closed her eyes.
“And the final ten?” Vivian asked.
“Employee trust.”
Every adult in the room looked up.
“What?”
James continued.
“Ten percent is being placed into a trust benefiting long-term Carter & Sons employees.”
Reverend Porter smiled faintly.
That part had been his idea.
Nathaniel had eventually agreed.
Vivian stared.
“So I have fifty.”
“Yes.”
“Patricia twenty.”
“Yes.”
“Naomi twenty.”
“In trust.”
“And employees ten.”
“Yes.”
Vivian did the arithmetic automatically.
No controlling majority if Patricia and the employee trustee aligned against her.
Her father had designed balance.
She saw it.
Hated it.
Then understood why.
James continued.
“Operational control remains with the board.”
“You are named president for an initial five-year term.”
Vivian looked stunned again.
“What?”
Nathaniel had trusted her to run the business.
He had simply refused to let running it become owning everyone else’s voice.
James read the relevant paragraph.