Chapter 5
"Every payment?" Garrett asked.
"Subject to the trust's terms," Ms. Morgan said.
"Including payments to its administrator."
Bennett pulled a chair from the desk.
For the first time, he sat.
"The fees were authorized."
"Then you'll be able to support them."
The attorney asked for the trust records.
Garrett directed the board secretary to preserve their copies.
Bennett looked toward the elevator.
Nobody stood in his way.
But his coat remained on the chair beside the fireplace.
Outside, snow kept crossing the windows sideways.
Elise folded her hands in her lap.
"So she was the problem."
Nobody answered.
"My daughter."
Bennett spoke without looking at her.
"It wasn't personal."
Walter stopped pressing tape onto the angel's wing.
Garrett turned fully toward Bennett.
"What wasn't?"
Bennett reached for the chair arms.
"She would've forced an accounting I couldn't survive."
The manager stood motionless beside the speakerphone.
Ms. Morgan broke the silence.
"Bennett, you should speak to your counsel."
He rose and walked toward the far window.
This time, nobody followed.
Garrett looked down at the papers on the cart.
He had missed the wedding.
Missed the birth.
Signed the estate approval.
Paid the attorney.
And spent four Christmases beneath that portrait.
Elise reached for Sadie.
The child crossed the few feet between them.
"Walter fixed it."
She held up the angel.
Elise kissed the top of her hat.
"That's good, honey."
Garrett crouched, keeping his distance.
"Did your mom tell you to bring the watch?"
Sadie shook her head.
"She said I could make presents."
"How did you know it was for me?"
"Daddy wanted you to have it."
Elise's eyes closed briefly.
Then she spoke.
"I told her about the note."
Garrett looked at her.
"When she asked what was in his drawer."
"I said he'd left something for his dad."
Sadie rested the angel against her mother's sleeve.
"The man in the picture is my daddy."
"He looks like you."
She glanced at Garrett's gray eyes.
"Only younger."
Garrett's mouth moved, but no words came.
Elise continued.
"I let her wrap the tin this afternoon."
"I thought we'd leave it with Walter."
"Her sitter had to start her shift."
"So Sadie waited near the service desk."
Garrett looked toward the narrow corridor.
Twenty feet from the party.
Four years from an answer.
"Why tonight?" he asked.
Elise glanced at the portrait.
"She asked whether he missed Daddy, too."
She meant Garrett.
His hand settled against the cart.
Walter lifted the last packet from the footlocker.
"This belongs with that note."
Elise recognized Nathan's writing on the outside.
She had placed it there after the funeral.
"His last letter," she said.
"He hadn't mailed it."
Garrett looked at the packet.
"Did you read it?"
"Not the letter."
"It was for you."
Walter set it beside the tin.
An envelope was clipped to the front.
Its postmark was September 2022.
Inside lay a photograph and a short reply.
Elise pointed at the photograph.
"We sent you that."
Sadie stood on a patch of grass.
One year old.
Nathan crouched behind her, ready to catch her.
The same brass watch chain crossed his vest.
"Her first steps outside," Elise said.
"He took twenty pictures before that one."
Garrett brought it closer.
Nathan's mouth was open in a laugh.
Garrett pressed his lips together.
For a while, he looked only at his son's face.
Then he unfolded the reply.
It had been printed on family-office stationery.
A copy of Garrett's signature sat at the bottom.
"I didn't write this."
Ms. Morgan asked him to preserve it with the envelope.
Bennett stayed by the window.
He didn't turn around.
Elise watched Garrett's face.
"That's why Nathan stopped trying the gate."
Garrett looked from the reply to his son's final letter.
His fingers could barely separate the paper.
Sadie leaned against her mother's knee.
"Did he get my picture?" she asked.
Elise stroked her curls.
"He has it now."
Garrett read the forged reply again.
Below his copied signature lay the answer Nathan had believed.
"Tell him I don't have a granddaughter."