Chapter 22 - I STOP ASKING WHAT DAD MEANT
There were still unanswered questions.
Did Dad remove Sophronia as trustee because of money?
Control?
Their arguments?
All of it?
Would he have reconciled the relationship if he lived another year?
Would he have changed the advancement schedule again?
No one knew.
I kept reading his notebook as if one line would produce a final verdict.
Then I found this:
S. brought soup. Too salty. Don’t tell her.
Next page:
Dacre forgot cardiology appointment. Again.
Then:
Clara called me Grandpa Sir because she watched too much television.
Then:
Aurelia sanded same board for forty minutes. May be more patient than all of us.
Dad was not writing a moral code.
He was living.
I closed the notebook.
No more mining dead people for rulings they never made.
Then North Coast asked whether I wanted my remainder share distributed outright or retained partly in the continuing trust structure Dad permitted.
I chose partial continuing trust.
Why?
Asset protection.
Tax planning.
Boring reasons.
Not because Sophronia could control it.
She could not.
That felt new.
Then Aurelia’s $60,000 education-and-health trust.
I did not tell her the number.
She was five.
She needed kindergarten.
Dentist.
Shoes.
Eventually school.
No child benefits from believing love has an account balance.
Clara’s trust was identical.
Good.
Then Dad’s residence and workshop property sold.
Neither Sophronia nor I bought it.
A young couple bought the house.
The detached workshop would become a studio.
I hated that for two days.
Then stopped.
Buildings change purpose.
May you like
The rocking horse stayed.
That was enough.
