The Book of James (2 page)

en’t seen him since. He still shuffles about, hands in his pockets, a vacant stare in his eyes, refusing to reengage in life. In the absence of a parental figure, bloody anarchy reigned between my brother

and me, reminiscent of
Lord of the Flies
. It continued until the day I left for college. My mother’s death wasn’t just another tal y mark on the wall of losses in my life. It was three furrowed slashes that had taken out my whole family.

“Here. I’m going to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.” Samantha hugged me, handed me my bundle of mail, and disappeared.

As I flipped through the pile, one stark white envelope stood

out among the assorted junk mail. The return address was from a

law office in Philadelphia. Davis, Lupinski & McBride. The letter’s words blurred across the page. My presence was requested at the

reading of Nick’s will on Tuesday.

Someone will contact you after I’m gone. They will want you to
go to Philadelphia.
I could almost feel Nick’s breath against my ear.

My hands started to shake, and the envelope slipped to the floor.

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

9

I must have called out, because Samantha appeared beside

me. “What? What happened?” She saw the paper on the floor and

picked it up, scanning quickly.

“What wil , Mac?” She peered at me through darkened

lashes. “Why wouldn’t he have an attorney here, in Maine? Why

Philadelphia?”

I chewed at the corner of my lip. I had told no one about Nick’s

last words, his ramblings.

Samantha sat on the edge of the sofa. She handed me the

phone. “Call them.”

I dialed the number for the law office and waited to be con-

nected with Mr. McBride. The dead silence was interminable.

When he final y picked up his extension, his voice was deep, his

speech rapid and pressured, like he already wanted to get me off

the phone. Nick did have a wil , he said, but he couldn’t tell me much more than that until I presented in person. I tried to pry

more out of him, but he was formal, stodgy, and wouldn’t budge.

He was going out of town and wanted to move the reading up to

the following day.

“Two o’clock, then, Mrs. Weichmann? In my office. I’ll answer

all your questions when you get here.” The line disconnected. I

jumped up from the couch and ran up the steps.

Samantha followed me to Nick’s office. “What’re you doing?”

I didn’t answer. I pushed open the door and scanned the room.

Nick had been a slob. His drafting table was littered with papers and old mail. When he’d needed to use it, he’d just push all the

stuff onto the floor. Discarded clothes hung from the back of his chair. Coffee mugs littered the desk and floor. I didn’t care about the mess right now; I wanted to find a copy of that wil .

Samantha leaned against the doorway, one hand on her hip.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” she asked again.

10

ELLEN J. GREEN

The metal of the file-cabinet drawer screeched when I opened

it. “They want to read the will tomorrow at two. Where would Nick have kept a copy, do you think?”

I began ripping through his files. Tax returns from four years

ago fluttered to the floor. I went to the next folder and then the next. If his architectural firm hadn’t sent me Nick’s life-insurance policy, I never would have found it in this chaos.

“I’m sure they have a copy,” she said.

“I know
they
have a copy, but I want to see it before I get there.

I don’t want to go into this blind.”

Her silence made me glance up. “What?”

She shook her head. “It’s just nice to see you motivated about

something, that’s al . Find the wil . I’m going to your room to start packing for you.” She glanced at her watch. “If you need to be in Philadelphia tomorrow, you better get a move on. It’s going to take at least half an hour to get a comb through your hair.”

She left while I searched through every paper in that cabinet,

every scrap lying around the room. When I was done, Nick’s office was a whirlwind of destruction, and I’d found nothing. My energy

spent, I turned off the light and took one last look at the mess he’d left behind. Somehow this room seemed fitting with the rest of his life. And mine.

Less than two hours after ripping that white envelope open, I

was stuck in traffic, headed south on I-95 to Philadelphia. My heart was beating a little faster than usual. My thoughts were rolling and spinning—doing backflips, actual y. Because I knew, as certainly

as I knew Nick was dead, that his will was a bit of his past shining through a teeny crack in a vault that had been sealed shut for years.

The reception room of the law office was decorated in cold,

hard edges of glass and lacquer. Old copies of
Newsweek
and
Architectural Digest
were scattered across the tabletops. I sat as still as I could on the hard seat, my right leg jumping up and down. I

counted the rhythmic beats until I final y lost count. My anxiety had produced a twisted braid of thoughts and I was no longer able to separate any of them.

“Mrs. Weichmann? Mr. McBride will see you now. Go straight

down this hal way, last office on the left.” The receptionist pointed over her shoulder and went back to typing.

The last office on the left was unoccupied, so I was forced to

wait again, this time in a padded chair. Mr. McBride blew past me several minutes later and deposited himself behind his enormous

mahogany desk.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Weichmann.” He appeared to be in his

late sixties. His gray hair was frizzy and disheveled, his manner harried. Massive files and haphazard stacks of papers littered his desk. “Your husband’s wil ,” he said, more to himself than to me.

12

ELLEN J. GREEN

I was beginning to think that this man had no idea what he was

doing.

“Mr. McBride, I’m confused. Are you sure you don’t have the

wrong person?” I squirmed in the chair to calm my nerves.

He smiled and his entire face changed. His brown eyes bright-

ened, became open and friendly. Dimples appeared in his large,

round cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Weichmann. Let me first start by

offering my sympathies for your loss. I knew Nick and I was very

upset when—”

“You knew Nick?” I blurted.

He nodded. “His father was a partner here. Bradford and I

knew each other wel .” He glanced down at the documents in front

of him. “This is a very strange case, but let me try to explain it to you the best I can.” He paused. “For starters, Weichmann wasn’t

Nick’s given name. It was Whitfield. His father, Bradford Whitfield, was a fairly wealthy man.” I must have been looking at him like he was crazy, because he stopped talking for a moment. “That’s why I wanted you to come down here. This isn’t the kind of thing I’d discuss on the phone. I know this is a lot for you understand; just bear with me.” He settled his elbows on the desk. “His father left some of his holdings in trust for Nick when he passed away. The terms

of the will were such that Nick could’ve had access to the money at any time. He chose not to do that. He refused to touch one penny

and left it in trust. I called him a couple of years ago and told him that he had to make out a will or we’d all be in a bind if something were to happen to him.”

“You called him?” I felt as if I were sitting through a play of

some sort. This was happening to someone else.

He nodded. “But let me get back to the terms of the wil . Nick

named you as sole beneficiary, with some stipulations.”

I tried to remember the last time Nick had gone away. The

only thing I could come up with was an architecture conference

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

13

two years ago in Chicago. Or I thought he went to Chicago.

“Stipulations? How much money are we talking about?”

His hands, which had been folded, opened up in front of him.

“It’s real y hard to say. Much of the money has been invested in limited partnerships, stocks, bonds, real estate. If you pressed me for a figure—and you are entitled to know—I’d have to say his personal

assets are somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen million dol-

lars. In addition, he took out a comprehensive life-insurance policy when he came down here. It was based on the total net worth

of the trust, and the premiums were taken from the trust. That

alone is worth nearly five million dol ars. You, again, are the sole beneficiary. Now the stipulations.” I suddenly felt light headed. I leaned forward, putting my face in my hands. “Mrs. Weichmann?”

“Mackenzie, please.” I pushed myself upright. “Do you know

that Nick and I had nothing? We had nothing during the four years of our marriage. Most of our fights were about money. We had

nothing but bil s, student loans that were crushing us. Why didn’t he tell me about this money? Why’d he change his name?” I was so

angry I wasn’t sure what I would do. “We were fighting about god-

damned fucking money when we had the accident. Do you know

that?” I stood up and paced. “Why didn’t he tell me about this?” I only realized that I had been shouting when Mr. McBride pushed

back in his chair.

“I can’t answer for Nick’s motivations, Mackenzie. I want you

to understand the stipulations in his wil . Please sit down.” I took a deep breath and obeyed. “Now, according to this document, you

will receive a lump sum of five million dol ars. Plus you’ll receive the money from his life-insurance policy. That money is yours. The rest of the estate will remain intact. You can have access to five percent of the principal per year plus all the interest on investments—

more if you petition the estate. And it is also stipulated that you make up a will immediately if you don’t already have one.”

14

ELLEN J. GREEN

“A will? Why?” I asked. “Is this mob money or something? Is

my life at risk somehow if I take it? Was he in the witness-protection program? What?”

Mr. McBride stood up. He pushed his glasses higher on his

nose and shifted in his wingtips. “Mackenzie, make out a wil , take the money, go back to Maine, and try to get on with your life.”

“No, there’s something wrong in all of this. I can feel it. You’re not telling me the whole story.” I stared up into his eyes. “What is it?”

His gaze didn’t leave my face, but his voice was flat and emo-

tionless. “There is another potential claimant to the money should you fail to comply with the stipulations.”

My curiosity jumped a notch. “Another relative?”

He shuffled the papers in front of him. “Yes.”

“Who?”

His eyes darted about, not resting on any particular thing.

“Nick’s mother. But Nick’s will was written in such a way that she will have difficulty trying to contest this . . .”

As soon as they know I’m dead, they’ll come after you.

His mother? The mother he said had died of ovarian cancer

fifteen years ago?

A queasy feeling turned my stomach, and I thought I might

throw up. “Do you happen to know anyone named James who was

connected to Nick?”

“James?” He shrugged. “It’s a fairly common name. There are

at least two associates here named James.” I watched his expression careful y, but there was only a tiny flicker behind the brown eyes.

“Do you have a last name?”

Don’t trust any of them.
“No. No, I don’t. I was going through some papers and I thought that maybe it was a high-school friend?

I wanted to let him know of Nick’s passing.”

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

15

Mr. McBride furrowed his brow and shook his gray head. I

forced myself up onto rubbery legs. I had to get out of the room; my head was spinning and I was afraid I was going to pass out.

“Mackenzie,” his deep voice called behind me, “you real y need

to make out a will in the event that something happens to you . . .”

Cora set the newspaper down on the desk and leaned back in her

chair. Her gaze turned almost automatical y toward the window,

which looked out on a dense shrouding of trees. She sat unmoving

for the longest time, except for her left hand, running rhythmi-

cal y over the page of her open Bible. Her lips repeated the verse almost exactly as it was printed on the page beneath her fingertips.

Someone watching might have thought she was in a trance.

When her neck became stiff and she was too uncomfortable

to sit anymore, she pushed back the chair and stood. Picking up

the folded newspaper, she read it once more, twice, until the words blurred on the page and became unreadable.

Nick was dead, the obituary said. A car accident. She felt the

rage course through her body.

The sun was going down. The light that came into the room

steadily dimmed, but Cora hardly noticed. She paced across the

oriental carpet, her gray cotton dress swishing against her thick knees with each movement. When she reached the wal , she

turned abruptly, almost pushing off like a swimmer doing laps,

and walked in the opposite direction. No complete thoughts went

THE BOOK
of
JAMES

17

through her mind, only fragments of sentences, words, and raw

emotion.

She stopped suddenly, midpace, and let the grief overcome

her. It wasn’t so much the loss her of son that she was grieving.

She’d lost him long ago, though she’d always held out hope that

she would get him back. No, it was more than that. Each loss in her life had compounded with those before it, growing and growing,