Chapter 23
The Monroe County courthouse on Whitehead Street was three blocks from Alden and Petit. Emma walked there with Rachel.
She wore the gray blazer. Her hair was up, and the small pearl earrings her mother had left her were in her ears for the first time since the funeral.
That morning at Winslow’s, Emma had stood in front of the mirror longer than usual.
She wanted to see some part of her mother and Gloria in the woman looking back at her.
She felt she had come close and prayed they’d be with her today.
Rachel had collected her from the lobby at nine-thirty. She wore the navy suit she kept for hearings, and even her hair looked more serious than usual.
“You okay?” Rachel asked as they turned onto Whitehead.
“I’m okay.”
“You’ll be quiet the whole time. I’ll do the talking. If Ellsworth addresses you directly, stand when you answer. Look at him, not Ted Ballard and not Arthur. Answer briefly, then sit down.”
“Understood.”
“There will be people in the gallery. Some of them will be there for you, but don’t turn around looking for them. Ellsworth doesn’t like anyone playing to a crowd.”
“I won’t turn around.”
“Edmund is coming. Rebecca’s driving him.”
“Connie called me at eleven last night to ask if there was a way she could come without anyone noticing.”
Rachel smiled. “What did you tell her?”
“That nobody would notice. She’s coming late and leaving before it’s over.”
“There may be others.” Rachel glanced at her. “Don’t turn around.”
“I won’t.”
They climbed the courthouse steps and stepped into the cool air inside. Emma had barely crossed the marble floor when the weight of what was about to happen settled in her stomach.
She stopped.
Rachel stopped too. She didn’t ask what was wrong or tell Emma everything would be fine. She simply waited beside her.
Emma drew a slow breath. For weeks, she had wanted this day to come. Now that it had, she wished she had five more minutes before walking into the courtroom. She wasn’t ready to hear Gloria’s life discussed in terms of wills, property and everything Arthur had taken.
Then she thought about the pearl earrings in her ears.
“I’m ready.”
Rachel nodded, and they walked to the courtroom.
The room was smaller than Emma expected. Two counsel tables faced the judge’s bench, with six rows of wooden benches behind them. A clerk sat to one side while a court reporter prepared her machine. The pale green walls looked as though no one had thought about changing the color since 1960.
Ted Ballard was already at the far table with Arthur beside him.
Arthur didn’t look up when Emma and Rachel entered. His hands were folded on the table, and his eyes stayed there.
Emma sat beside Rachel. A moment later, Yolanda came through the door pushing a wheeled cart loaded with file boxes. She parked it beside Rachel, took the small chair at the end of the table and gave Emma one firm nod.
A quiet cough sounded like Edmund. Someone shifted on a bench, and she wondered if it was Jake. A few minutes later, the door opened and closed so quietly that Emma thought of Connie slipping into the back row exactly as she’d planned. Knowing they were there helped more than she expected.
At ten o’clock, the bailiff called the room to order and Judge Ellsworth came in.
He was in his sixties, with gray hair and glasses hanging from a chain around his neck. He sat without ceremony, put on his glasses and opened the folder in front of him.
“Be seated.”
Everyone sat.
“This is the matter of the estate of Gloria Marie Kendrick. Ms. Alden for the petitioner and Mr. Ballard for the respondent. I’ve read the filings from both sides, the deposition transcript from Monday and the supplemental materials submitted Tuesday.
” He looked at Rachel. “Ms. Alden, walk me through the timeline of the two wills.”
Rachel stood.
For the next twenty minutes, she took the judge through the 2018 will Arthur had submitted for probate and the 2022 will Gloria had signed in Miami-Dade.
She explained the witnesses, the notary and the original document from the safe deposit box at Ocean National Bank on Brickell.
Then she moved to the records concerning the cottage and the trips Gloria had wanted to make to Key West but hadn’t made because Arthur told her the house was unsafe.
Emma listened without looking at him.
Hearing Rachel tell the story in order made Arthur’s choices seem even more deliberate. There was no family confusion in the dates laid out before the judge. No misunderstanding. Gloria had made her wishes clear, and Arthur had decided they didn’t matter.
Judge Ellsworth interrupted three times with questions. Rachel answered each one and continued.
When she finished, she sat down.
Ellsworth turned to the other table.
“Mr. Ballard.”
“Your Honor.”
“Do you have a response?”
Ballard stood and straightened his tie before looking down at his notes.
“Your Honor, my client’s position is that he acted in good faith on the will he had been given by his mother, which he believed to be the operative document.”
Judge Ellsworth looked over his glasses.
“Mr. Ballard, your client testified under oath Monday that he became aware of the 2022 will in November of last year. That’s in the transcript.” He paused. “Are you asking this court to disregard his testimony?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Then good faith is difficult to reconcile with the record before me. Your client knew about the later will. He proceeded under the earlier one anyway. He sold his mother’s condominium and liquidated the brokerage account.
He was also in the process of selling the Key West property when the later will came to light. ”
Ballard said nothing.
“Do you have another argument you’d like me to consider?”
“No further argument, Your Honor.”
“Thank you. Sit down.”
Ballard sat.
Emma kept her eyes on her hands.
She didn’t look at Arthur or turn toward Edmund and Jake. Rachel had told her what to do, and she did it. Still, her heart had begun beating hard enough that she could feel it beneath the gray blazer.
Judge Ellsworth wrote something in the folder. He removed his glasses, put them back on and looked up.
“The court finds that the 2018 will submitted in the original probate was superseded by the 2022 will. The later will was properly executed and is the operative document governing the estate of Gloria Marie Kendrick. The prior probate orders inconsistent with that will are vacated, and the estate will be administered under the terms of the 2022 instrument.”
Emma held her breath.
“The property at Twenty-Three Hibiscus Lane, Key West, passes to Emma Kendrick under that will. Any pending sale of the property is without authority and will not proceed. Recovery of estate assets sold, liquidated or distributed under the prior administration will be addressed through further proceedings. This court will retain jurisdiction.”
Emma heard Rachel exhale softly beside her.
The cottage was hers.
She had known what Gloria wanted since reading the letter at the kitchen table but knowing it and hearing a judge say it were different things. Arthur couldn’t sell the cottage. He couldn’t take it from her, and he couldn’t take it from Jake.
Judge Ellsworth turned a page.
“The court has also reviewed Mr. Kendrick’s deposition testimony, the probate filings and the financial records submitted by counsel.
Questions concerning whether any criminal laws were violated are not for this court to decide today.
The relevant materials may be provided to the state attorney’s office, which can determine whether further action is warranted. ”
He looked toward Arthur’s table.
“Mr. Ballard, I suggest your client remain available to his counsel.”
“Understood, Your Honor.”
Emma felt no satisfaction at that. She had expected to.
Instead, she thought of Gloria.
Judge Ellsworth looked toward the clerk and then back at the papers in front of him. When he raised his eyes again, they settled on Emma.
“Ms. Kendrick, please stand.”
Emma stood.
“I don’t usually comment beyond the ruling, but I’ll say this. Your grandmother took deliberate steps to make her wishes known. The record before me leaves very little doubt about what she intended. This court will see that the estate is administered accordingly.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“You may sit down.”
Emma sat.
“We’re adjourned.”
Everyone stood as Judge Ellsworth left through the door behind the bench.
The courtroom was completely quiet.
Then Rachel exhaled again, longer this time. Yolanda touched Emma’s elbow.
Emma turned around.
Edmund sat in the second row with Rebecca beside him.
He looked thinner than he had the week before, but his eyes were bright.
When he smiled, Emma knew he had heard something in the judge’s words that mattered to him too.
Gloria had made herself clear, and someone with the authority to do something about it had finally listened.
Edmund nodded once.
Emma nodded back.
Jake sat one row behind him in a button-down shirt she hadn’t seen before. His hands rested on his knees. At first he didn’t smile. He only held her eyes.
Then his expression softened.
Emma wanted to go to him, but Connie caught her attention from the back row. She was already standing in a dark blouse with her purse over one shoulder. She lifted a hand, just enough for Emma to see, and slipped through the door before Emma could reach her.
Emma turned back to Rachel.
“You okay?” Rachel asked quietly.
“I think so.”
“You did well.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You stood when he told you to stand. You answered when he spoke to you, and you didn’t turn around even once. That was the assignment.”
Emma smiled. “I executed the assignment?”
“Beautifully.”
Ted Ballard approached the table but didn’t offer his hand.
“Rachel.”
“Ted.”
“I’ll be in touch about the recovery process. My client intends to cooperate.”
Rachel held his gaze. “That’ll make a nice change. I’ll be in touch.”
Ballard turned to Emma. “Ms. Kendrick, I’m sorry for the difficulty this has caused you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ballard.”
He nodded and returned to Arthur.
For the second time in two days, Emma looked at her uncle for longer than a second. His hands were flat on the table, and his shoulders seemed to have folded inward. He still didn’t look at her.
A few weeks ago, she might have wanted him to. She might have needed him to see her standing there after losing the thing he’d tried so hard to keep from her.
Now she didn’t.
“Come on,” Rachel said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They stepped into the marble hallway with Yolanda and her cart of file boxes behind them. Edmund was waiting with Rebecca a step away. Jake stood farther down the hall, giving Emma room to go where she needed to go first.
She went to Edmund.
He opened his arms, and Emma stepped into them. He held her for a long moment with the gentle strength she had come to know in him.
“She’d have been proud,” he said into her hair.
Emma closed her eyes. “I hope so.”
“I know so. She wanted this for years, and now she got it.”
Emma stepped back. Her eyes were wet. Edmund’s were too.
She imagined Gloria standing beside them. She could clearly see Gloria with a cup of coffee in one hand, pretending not to notice that her fourteen-year-old granddaughter had stolen half of it.
“Come to the house for lunch. Rebecca’s making Cuban sandwiches. Bring Jake. Bring Rachel if she’ll come.”
“I’ll come.”
“Good.”
Rebecca smiled over her father’s shoulder. Then she tipped her chin toward the front door and mouthed that she was taking him home to rest first.
Emma nodded.
She watched them make their way toward the exit with Rebecca’s hand at Edmund’s elbow.
Then Emma turned to Rachel.
“Rachel.”
“I know. Go. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you did.”
Rachel’s expression softened. “You’re welcome,” she said, then looked over at Jake. “I think there’s someone here waiting for you.”
Emma blushed and then looked at Jake.
Rachel and Yolanda headed for the door.
Jake came toward Emma.
She watched him cross the hallway and felt something inside her finally give way. She had been holding herself together since Rachel met her in the lobby that morning. Maybe since Samantha’s first phone call.
Jake stopped in front of her.
“Well?” he asked softly.
Emma looked at him. “The cottage is mine.”
His smile came slowly. “Yeah, it is.”
Hearing him say it nearly undid her.
She stepped forward and put her arms around him. Jake held her, one hand settling at the back of her neck.
“I kept thinking about you sitting behind me,” she said against his shoulder.
Emma pulled back enough to look at him. “You wore a nice shirt.”
“I own two.”
“That many?”
“I save them for court visits and funerals.”
Emma laughed.
Jake brushed his thumb beneath one of her eyes. “You want to get out of here?”
“Please.”
They walked out of the courthouse into the Wednesday sun. Emma left her sunglasses in her bag. After the cold courtroom, she wanted the heat on her face.
At the corner, she stopped and Jake stopped beside her.
Emma looked back at the courthouse and thought about Gloria.
“You know for so long, I’ve thought of my grandmother’s final years in terms of what she’d lost, her health, her freedom. And then I find out she couldn’t visit the cottage she loved so much.”
She looked at Jake. “But today I feel joy knowing that in the end, she had the last word.
The tears came before Emma could stop them.
Jake put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
“I am happy.” Emma wiped beneath one eye. “That’s not what this crying is. I think it’s just tension releasing.”
“I know.”
She believed he did.
Emma rested against him and let herself cry for a minute. She cried for Gloria and for her father. Most of all, she cried because there was no longer anything Emma had to do to get her grandmother’s voice heard.
When the tears finally stopped, she took a breath and looked at Jake.
“Rebecca’s Cuban sandwiches.”
“Now you’re thinking clearly.”
“I need to fix my face first.”
“You look fine.”
“I look like a woman who just cried on Whitehead Street.”
“You look like a woman who won her grandmother’s house and is about to eat a sandwich. Sounds normal to me.”
Emma smiled. “That sounds much better.”
She let him take her hand. They started toward Rebecca’s house on Simonton.
Emma didn’t want to talk about the money or the recovery process.
She didn’t want to think about the state attorney’s office or Arthur sitting with Ted Ballard while the consequences of what he’d done finally caught up with him.
Those things would still be there tomorrow.
For now, she wanted lunch with Edmund. She wanted Jake beside her, and she wanted to hear more stories about her grandmother. That felt like the right way to spend the first afternoon the cottage truly belonged to her, and to honor the reason for it.