I was still waiting for the words.<\/p>\n
Mr. Caldwell had unfolded the second page of Nana\u2019s amendment.<\/p>\n
My mother had already challenged its validity.<\/p>\n
My father had looked frightened.<\/p>\n
And I had refused to let my mother push me out of the conversation.<\/p>\n
But the question that mattered most remained unanswered.<\/p>\n
What had Nana changed?<\/p>\n
I looked at the paper in Mr. Caldwell\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
I could see that it existed.<\/p>\n
I knew it carried instructions concerning her estate.<\/p>\n
But I could not tell what those instructions were.<\/p>\n
That was the part I kept returning to.<\/p>\n
My mother had reacted before the amendment was fully explained.<\/p>\n
She had insisted that the change was impossible.<\/p>\n
Then she had questioned Nana\u2019s ability to understand what she was signing.<\/p>\n
Mr. Caldwell had answered her.<\/p>\n
He had given the date.<\/p>\n
Three days before Nana died.<\/p>\n
He had explained that two independent witnesses were involved.<\/p>\n
He had said the amendment was notarized.<\/p>\n
Then he had mentioned Nana\u2019s attending physician.<\/p>\n
There was written confirmation that she had been mentally competent.<\/p>\n
Those were the facts available to me.<\/p>\n
And they were important.<\/p>\n
But they did not explain the contents of the amendment.<\/p>\n
I had to remember that.<\/p>\n
I could not turn evidence of a properly executed document into evidence of what the document actually said.<\/p>\n
It was tempting.<\/p>\n
Especially with my parents reacting the way they had.<\/p>\n
My mother seemed desperate to reject the change.<\/p>\n
My father looked afraid.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe their reactions told me something definite.<\/p>\n
But I had no way to know whether they did.<\/p>\n
I thought about what fear could mean.<\/p>\n
It could mean someone expected to lose something.<\/p>\n
It could mean someone was worried about a disagreement.<\/p>\n
It could mean someone had heard information they had not anticipated.<\/p>\n
Those were possibilities.<\/p>\n
Nothing more.<\/p>\n
And I knew I would be unfair if I chose the most frightening explanation simply because it made the scene easier to understand.<\/p>\n
I looked toward my father.<\/p>\n
His expression remained fixed in my memory.<\/p>\n
I wished he would explain himself.<\/p>\n
I wished he would say what troubled him.<\/p>\n
But wishing did not create an answer.<\/p>\n
I could not give him words he had not spoken.<\/p>\n
I turned my attention back to my mother.<\/p>\n
Her attempt to silence me still hurt.<\/p>\n
I had asked the lawyer to continue.<\/p>\n
That was all.<\/p>\n
I had not accused her.<\/p>\n
I had not challenged my father.<\/p>\n
I had not claimed that Nana had left me anything.<\/p>\n
Yet she had told me to stay out of the matter.<\/p>\n
I remembered how quickly I had considered obeying.<\/p>\n
That was the part that made me uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I had almost let her anger determine my place in a conversation I had every reason to hear.<\/p>\n
Then I had refused.<\/p>\n
Not loudly.<\/p>\n
Not dramatically.<\/p>\n
I had simply told her I intended to remain.<\/p>\n
That choice still mattered to me.<\/p>\n
Even though it did not reveal the amendment.<\/p>\n
Even though it did not resolve my parents\u2019 reactions.<\/p>\n
Even though it left me sitting there with the same unanswered questions.<\/p>\n
I had made one decision for myself.<\/p>\n
And I could stand by it.<\/p>\n
I looked again at the second page.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know whether Nana had been trying to correct something.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know whether she had changed the distribution of her property.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know whether her final instructions would explain the tension in the room.<\/p>\n
But I could not answer any of those questions.<\/p>\n
Not yet.<\/p>\n
The available account of the reading stopped with Mr. Caldwell opening that page.<\/p>\n
No further words from the document had been supplied.<\/p>\n
No later conversation had been described.<\/p>\n
No final distribution had been revealed.<\/p>\n
I could not honestly continue the plot beyond that point.<\/p>\n
I could only describe the uncertainty that remained.<\/p>\n
I thought about Nana\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n
Three days before her death.<\/p>\n
A decision made during the final part of her life.<\/p>\n
A decision that had been witnessed and notarized.<\/p>\n
A decision her physician said she was capable of making.<\/p>\n
My mother wanted to challenge it.<\/p>\n
I wanted to understand it.<\/p>\n
Those were not the same things.<\/p>\n
And I was becoming more certain that understanding had to come before judgment.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether I would agree with Nana\u2019s instructions.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether I would be disappointed.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether I would feel relieved.<\/p>\n
I only knew that they were hers.<\/p>\n
And I wanted to hear them without someone else deciding what I should think.<\/p>\n
That was the thought I held on to.<\/p>\n
Not an accusation.<\/p>\n
Not a promise of an inheritance.<\/p>\n
Not a theory about a hidden secret.<\/p>\n
Just the belief that Nana\u2019s actual words mattered.<\/p>\n
I had already refused my mother\u2019s order.<\/p>\n
Now I had to be equally careful with myself.<\/p>\n
I could not allow my own suspicions to become another way of speaking over Nana.<\/p>\n
If the amendment contained something painful, I would have to face it.<\/p>\n
If it contained something unexpected, I would have to consider it.<\/p>\n
If it raised more questions, I would have to admit that too.<\/p>\n
But none of those possibilities had happened in the portion of the story I knew.<\/p>\n
The second page was open.<\/p>\n
The room was tense.<\/p>\n
And I was still waiting.<\/p>\n
I remembered thinking that the next words might change how I understood my family.<\/p>\n
Perhaps they would.<\/p>\n
Perhaps they would not.<\/p>\n
I refused to decide before hearing them.<\/p>\n
I was still waiting for the words. Mr. Caldwell had unfolded the second page of Nana\u2019s amendment. My mother had already challenged its validity. My father had looked frightened. And … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39607,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39587\/revisions\/39607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}