Chapter Two
Noah
The office was cold and expensive. Hard leather chairs and a steel framed window only served to punctuate the unease settling into my stomach at being here.
The number didn’t make sense to me. I saw it, scrawled on the estate attorney’s letterhead with far too many commas, but it didn’t mean anything. What was that, billions?
The dimple-chinned attorney smiled as if I should be happy about the ludicrous amount of zeros on the paper in front of me. I passed it to my brother.
The lawyer cleared he throat. “Obviously the majority of the holdings aren’t liquid. Those that are will be put—”
“I don’t want it,” I said, interrupting him.
The man looked at his lap, graying eyebrows knitting into a frown. “Noah, I understand this is a difficult time for you.”
I felt the weight of my brother’s warning stare before I’d said a word.
“Difficult time, Mr. Langstrom?” I tried to modulate my tone, tried even harder not to raise out of my chair and shout down at the man. “Yes, I’d say it has been difficult watching not one but both our parents waste away in a long-term care facility. Difficult doesn’t begin to cover what it’s like to watch as they take their last breath because you gave the order to stop life support. Difficult isn’t what comes to mind when I think of how much more life they should have had, Mr. Langstrom,” I said, venom dripping from my voice.
Nick flashed me a disapproving look.
Langstrom straightened in his chair, adjusting his tie as he did. “Of course, Mr. Mercer. I can’t imagine what you two have been through. Which is why you’re in absolutely no condition to make any decisions, long-term or not, about your financial future. This meeting is simply to inform you of the situation, as detailed by your father’s last wishes. The holdings have already been transferred to your names in the form of a trust. The monthly estate expenses will be deducted automatically, tuition and living expenses will be transferred to your personal accounts on the fifteenth and thirtieth of each month. You should also know that on your twenty-fifth birthday...”
He kept talking and while I knew what he said was important, I couldn’t keep my attention from wandering. Flashes of the few childhood memories I had with my parents streaked across my mind, unwanted, unbeckoned. Bitter images of the one holiday we spent with our parents, instead of at our grandparent’s house so our mother and father could traipse across Monaco or hole up in their country house in the Hamptons, played behind my eyes. The lopsided snowman we built in Central Park, the hot dog and cocoa we got on the walk back to the car and the look of pure adoration on my brother’s face as he watched our parents buckle us into the back seat. We’d had so much fun and I wanted so much to do it every holiday. But year after year the disappointment of getting shipped off to Grandma’s house instead had tainted the memory.
Nick was a lot easier on them than I was. He always told me to look for the good in them but all I could see were two people so self-involved they couldn’t be bothered to raise their own children. Ours was a life of privileged distance—of nannies and boarding schools and obligatory weekly phone calls sprinkled with extravagant guilt gifts. On our fourteenth birthday, they got us matching Ferrari’s, mine in black and Nick’s in blue—our favorite colors. At least they’d gotten that part right. Too bad they were two years too early.
If only I had known that by the time we’d be able to drive those ridiculous cars our parents would be comatose.
I glanced at Nick, studiously paying attention to Langstrom’s words. At least one of us was.
“Well, I think that covers everything,” the lawyer said, getting up and ushering us to the door. “You have my number if you have any questions, yes?”
“We do,” Nick said. “Thank you for walking us through it and for meeting us so early.”
Langstrom nodded and we left the Manhattan office.
“We’re going to be late. Again,” I said as we got in the black sedan waiting for us.
“I know,” Nick said, staring out the window.
“If you had let me storm out when I wanted to this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Mhmm. But then neither of us would know the contingents of our trust.”
I shrugged. “I got worked up. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not their fault,” Nick said quietly.
I sighed and tried not to feed the newly stoked embers of my anger. I didn’t want to yell at my brother. “Of course it’s their fault. If they hadn’t been in Vale without us they wouldn’t have even been on that plane.”
“Maybe. Or maybe if we’d all been together we’d all be dead. Who knows. My point is that you can be mad at them if you want, they were terrible parents and maybe they deserve your undying anger but they didn’t deserve to die. So don’t be mad at them for that.”
I hated when Nick was right. He was right a lot. Maybe I should try to let go of it. Of all of it. But how do you let go of twenty-four years of resentment?
The ride to campus afforded me enough time to stuff my anger away and put on my extrovert face, my “everything’s fine” face. We strolled into Webb’s econ class ten minutes late as usual. Webb knew the bones of our situation. He knew the only time we had to take care of our parents’ affairs was before class which meant sometimes we were late. He also knew that the best time to visit our parents had been early in the morning which also made us late sometimes.
He knew. But I wish he’d tell our T.A.
Jeannie was the hottest hardass I’d ever met. She never cut Nick or I any slack, always taking full points off for minor errors in assignments and pushing us extra hard in study group. I liked that about her. She pushed me to be better. Though, she could stand to ease up occasionally. Econ was hard enough.
I apologized to both Webb and Jeannie, making sure to add a little extra charm to Jeannie’s apology.
“Go sit down, Nick.”
I smiled at her. “I’m not Nick, I’m Noah, Jeannie.”
“You still need to sit down,” she said, fire burning in her golden-yellow eyes. Jeannie was a tough nut to crack.
Nick and I never worried about women. They were always charmed by our money or faces or whatever. As difficult as our home life had been, women had always been easy for us. But Jeannie wouldn’t even look at us fully.
It made me wonder if we’d done something to offend her.