It usually is. But the way he's chosen to fight for it is by attacking the two people your daughter just started to trust. Marcus put his hand over his eyes. 3 weeks. Three weeks of his daughter finally getting a piece of her mother back of Emma at his kitchen table at 2 in the morning. of a life that had finally finally started to feel solid.
And now a man Marcus had never met was filing legal papers claiming that all of it was a con. "What does this mean for Lily?" he asked. "That was always the only question that mattered. Practically in the short term, nothing changes about her day-to-day, but it means depositions. It means Viven's relationship with Lily is going to be scrutinized.
It means potentially that a judge could order limits on contact until it's resolved and it could drag on for a year or more. A pause. I'm sorry. I know this is the last thing you needed. Marcus thanked her, hung up, and stood in his office with his heart pounding.
Then he did the thing that had become automatic. He called Emma. She listened to the whole thing without interrupting the way she always did. And when he finished, there was a silence on the line. And then Emma said something Marcus did not expect.
I might be able to help with this, she said slowly. How do you remember I told you my mother came to live with me 5 years ago after she got sick. Emma's voice had changed had gotten careful. Marcus, my mother didn't get sick out of nowhere. Before she came to live with me, Ruth spent 31 years as a probate parillegal.
Wills estates trusts contested inheritances. It was her whole career. a breath. If anybody on this earth knows how a man like Gerald Reyes fights and how you fight back, it's my mother. Marcus stood very still. You're telling me, Ruth, I'm telling you that the woman you drove through an ice storm 5 years ago spent three decades taking apart exactly this kind of case for a living.
Emma's voice had a fierce edge now. And I'm telling you that she loves that little girl like her own grandchild. And if you think she's going to sit by while some man tries to weaponize a dead woman's will against Lily, you don't know Ruth at all. That night, they gathered at Emma's house after Lily was asleep. Renee watching the baby monitor next door.
Ruth sat at the head of her own kitchen table with reading glasses on and the lawyer's letter in her hands. And Marcus watched a 78-year-old woman he'd only ever known as sharp tonged and opinionated transform into something else entirely. a professional, coldeyed and precise, reading the filing the way a surgeon reads a chart. Mom, Ruth said, turning a page. Mhm. There it is.
She set the letter down. This man is bluffing. How do you know? Marcus asked. Because I've read a thousand of these, and this one is loud.
Ruth took off her glasses. A real challenge to competency is quiet. It's got doctor's affidavit. It's got dated medical records. It's got a paper trail showing decline.
This she tapped the letter. This is all adjectives. Manipulated, vulnerable, acting in concert. You know what adjectives are, Marcus? Adjectives are what you use when you don't have facts.
She leaned back. This man didn't visit his sister once in her last year. I'd bet the house on it. And when it comes out in deposition that Viven sat with a dying woman that her own brother couldn't be bothered to call, this whole thing is going to fall apart in his hands. Marcus stared at her.
You got all that from one letter. Baby, I got all that from the first paragraph. Ruth put her glasses back on. Now, here's what we're going to do. And she laid it out step by step, the whole strategy, cold and clean.
And Marcus sat in that kitchen and watched Emma's mother go to war for his daughter with 31 years of expertise. She'd never mentioned once in five years of being neighbors. And he thought about how strange and enormous life was that the woman he'd carried through an ice storm on the worst night of her life was now the one holding the map through the worst threat to his. But there was a moment near the end of that night that Marcus would remember longer than the strategy. Ruth set down her glasses, looked at Marcus over the table, and said, "Can I ask you something and you tell me the truth?" "Of course, this girl." She nodded toward Emma, "My daughter, she was 31 years old, sitting on a feeling about you, too scared to open her mouth for 4 years." "Four years, Marcus." I watched her waste them.
Ruth's voice was quiet, but it carried weight. You're a good man. I've known that since the ice. But I need to hear you say what you intend because I'm old and I'm not going to be here forever and I need to know that when I'm gone, my daughter isn't going to be sitting on a feeling again alone. The kitchen went silent.
Emma had gone very still. Mama, I'm not asking her, Ruth said, eyes on Marcus. I'm asking him. And Marcus, who 3 months ago couldn't have imagined this conversation, who had spent 4 years believing his story was already written, looked at Emma and then looked at her mother and answered without hesitation. "I intend to marry her," he said.
The words landed in the room like a stone in still water. Emma's hand flew to her mouth. Ruth's eyebrows rose, and Marcus, hearing the words come out of his own mouth, realized they were true. had been true for a while, that he'd been circling this knowledge for weeks without letting himself land on it, and that it had taken a 78-year-old woman's blunt question in a kitchen at 11 at night to make him say it out loud. "Marcus," Emma breathed. "You've never We've never even I know." He turned to her fully.
And this is the worst possible way to bring it up in the middle of all a lawsuit at your mother's kitchen table with a legal letter sitting right there. This is not the way I'd have planned it. He reached across and took her hand. But your mother asked me what I intend. And I'm not going to lie to Ruth of all people.