Chapter 2
At home, Marshall showers while I sit at the kitchen island with my laptop, a glass of water, and the calm expression of a woman absolutely not typing her own name into the board portal like a raccoon in pearls.
Fine.
Like a tax attorney in pearls. Better brand alignment.
The Fairbanks Foundation portal has two versions: the friendly front room for board decks, minutes, grant packets, and donor notes, and the back room for trustees, officers, and counsel.
My father built the back room after a board member once forwarded a confidential land valuation to his golf group by accident.
Dad called it "evidence that rich men should not be trusted with reply all. "
I miss him so sharply I have to stop typing.
Then I keep going, because apparently somebody has decided my grief is a door they can use.
My credentials still work. They should. I am the director of the foundation and successor trustee of the Fairbanks Family Trust. Marshall is co-trustee because my father liked him at the time, which is a sentence I would like to mail into the sun.
I search for Westbridge.
Nothing.
I search for Mehta.
One result appears inside a folder labeled:
Trustee Wellness Review
My body goes cold, then hot, then cold again.
The folder has been shared with Marshall, Sabine Roark, outside counsel, and an email address I do not recognize. Not with me. The only reason I can see it is because my trustee permissions outrank the folder settings.
Thanks, Dad.
I download nothing yet. I open the preview pane and photograph the screen with my phone. Then I photograph the access log. Then I write the file name in my notebook.
The first document is a draft petition.
In re: Fairbanks Family Trust.
Petition for Review of Trustee Capacity and Temporary Suspension of Fiduciary Authority.
My name appears in the first paragraph. Not Honor. Not my father’s daughter, not the woman who has run the foundation for six years without losing a dime or accidentally funding a yacht club literacy program. Respondent.
I read the first page.
Then the second.
By page three, the kitchen has become too bright.
Marshall is asking the court to suspend my authority pending evaluation. He claims I have shown "erratic judgment," "inconsistent memory," "emotional volatility," and "increasing inability to distinguish foundation business from personal grief."
That last one is rich, considering he is using my father’s death as a ladder.
The incident log is worse because it is smaller.
Small lies are intimate.
March 4: Honor misplaced donor pledge report and accused accounting of removing it.
I did not misplace it. Marshall had asked accounting to rerun the pledge aging by family office, then returned the old report to my folder after I asked for the new one.
March 18: Honor became agitated when Sabine suggested review of scholarship reserve allocation.
I told Sabine no because the reserve allocation was board-approved, and her suggested review somehow involved moving three million dollars into a product with a fee schedule shaped like a crime.
April 2: Honor forgot lunch meeting with Marshall and trustee counsel.
I was never invited to that lunch. I was in Newark visiting a housing nonprofit we fund. There are photos. I am holding a hard hat and regretting my shoe choice.
I scroll.
Sabine’s comments run along the right side in neat little bubbles.
Use grief counseling dates here.
Ask Marshall if father had any cognitive decline. Family history helps establish concern.
Don’t overstate. Pattern is stronger than event.
I stare at that last one for a long time.
Pattern.
She thinks she is so elegant.
I open the account statement folder next.
Three brokerage reports, one asset migration proposal, and a fee schedule from the Roark Advisory Group.
Sabine’s firm. The holdings have been churned through short-term positions with fees I would have flagged in eight minutes if anyone had put the statements in front of me.
No wonder they need me officially fragile.
I copy the file names into my notebook, then add the time.
The shower turns off upstairs.
I close the portal, clear the recent file preview, and put my laptop to sleep. My heart is moving too fast, but my hands know what to do. That is the insult, really. They picked the woman who alphabetizes closing binders for comfort.
Marshall comes downstairs in sweatpants and a T-shirt, damp hair combed back, bare feet silent on the floor he wanted because it made the house "feel less Fairbanks."
The house is mine. My father put it in my name before the wedding because, as he said, "I trust romance. I do not trust paperwork written by people in love."
Dad was annoying when alive.
Dead, he is starting to look like a prophet with blood pressure issues.
"Working?" Marshall asks.
"Trying not to."
He opens the refrigerator, then closes it without taking anything out.
"Sabine called earlier."
I keep my eyes on my water glass. "How is our favorite fee schedule?"
"Honor."
"What?"
"That kind of comment is what I mean."
I turn slightly. "What kind?"
"Sharp. Suspicious. Unfair."
"Sabine works for the trust. I’m allowed to dislike her fees."
"She’s trying to help."
"She’s very brave."
Marshall exhales. "I don’t want to fight."
Men love saying that after they pick the fight.
"Then don’t."
He studies me, and I see it again. Not worry. Measurement. He is checking whether the old methods still work. Soft voice. Sad eyes. My father’s name pressed exactly where it hurts.
"Your dad would hate seeing you like this," he says.
I take one sip of water.
Not because I am thirsty. Because if I answer too quickly, I may say something I cannot take back.
"Seeing me like what?"
"Alone in your head."
That almost gets me.
Not because it is true. Because it is close enough to hurt, and he knows it.
"I’m tired," I say.
He looks relieved. Tired is easier for him to use than angry.
"Come to bed," he says.
"In a minute."
Marshall crosses the kitchen and kisses the top of my head. A month ago, that gesture would have made me close my eyes.
Tonight I count.
One, his hand on my shoulder.
Two, the smell of his shampoo.
Three, the wedding ring he is still wearing while he builds a file to make me small enough to move.
When he goes upstairs, I open the notebook again.
Sabine called Marshall. He defended her after I mentioned fees. He said Dad would hate seeing me "alone in my head."
Then I write the sentence from Sabine’s comment bubble.
Pattern is stronger than event.
I underline it once.
For Sabine, apparently, that is strategy.
For me, it is a shopping list.