PART 6
“How much are we actually talking about?” I asked, once I trusted my voice enough to form the question properly.
Elias slid a separate folder across the table, one he’d clearly had ready and waiting for exactly this moment. “The trust holds just over two point three million dollars, Marguerite. Fully funded, fully executed, entirely outside probate. You have complete access to it starting today. The paperwork has been ready for you since the moment Silas signed it eighteen months ago.”
I stared at the number for a long time without fully processing it.
“He let our children believe he left me with nothing,” I said slowly. “For months, they’ve been treating me like a footnote in their father’s estate. My own daughter asked me, gently, whether I needed help covering my expenses now, because she genuinely thought that will meant I had almost nothing left.”
“He asked me, specifically, not to explain any of this to your children until after you’d had time to process it yourself,” Elias said. “I think he worried that if the full plan became known too quickly, word might reach Roland before the estate had fully closed, giving him time to attempt some kind of counter-claim against the trust itself, however unlikely that would have been to succeed.”
