Chapter 7 - The Journey to Richmond
The trip to Richmond was ninety-two miles down the interstate, but I didn't take the highway.
I took Route 1, the old road that runs through the pine woods and the small, pre-war towns where the gas stations still have service bays and the court squares have stone monuments to men who knew how to lose an empire without lying about the cost.
I drove my nineteen-ninety-seven Buick LeSabre—the car David had bought for my fiftieth birthday with cash he had saved from six seasons of timber-clearing. It was long, heavy, and smelled of the cedar shavings he always kept in the trunk to absorb the damp.
The heater worked with a deep, volcanic warmth that kept the windshield clear even as the sleet began to coat the hemlocks along the road in gray tallow.
Marcus Vance’s office was not an open-concept glass box.
It was on the third floor of an eighteen-eighty-five brick building on Franklin Street, accessible only by a slow, iron-caged elevator that smelled of lubricating oil and old paper. The library had sixteen-foot ceilings, heart-pine floorboards that groaned under the weight of three thousand volumes of the Virginia Reports, and a coal fire burning quietly in an iron grate beneath a carved walnut mantel.
Marcus stood up when his secretary opened the frosted glass door.
He was seventy-two, with silver hair cropped close to a skull that looked like it had been carved from blue limestone, wearing a tweed three-piece suit that had been tailored in London when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. He had David’s hands—the broad, flat nails of a man whose family had worked with their palms before they worked with their pens.
"Pauline," he said, coming around the mahogany desk with both hands outstretched. His grip was warm, dry, and solid. "You shouldn't have driven down in this weather. The radio says the freezing rain is crossing the river at Fredericksburg."
"The Buick has two bags of gravel in the trunk, Marcus," I said, sitting in the heavy leather armchair opposite his desk. "David always said weight over the rear axle is worth five sets of tire chains."
Marcus smiled, but his gray eyes—sharp as a surveyor’s transit—stayed on my face. He took his seat, folded his hands over a fresh legal pad, and waited. He had known me since I was nineteen; he knew that a woman who has driven through two hours of ice to reach an attorney's office does not require twenty minutes of conversation about the state senate races.
"David built the house true, Marcus," I said.
"I was there when the rafters went up, Pauline. I held the chalk line for the center ridge."
"Liam wants to drop the bearing wall between the kitchen and the dining room," I said. "He wants to put in an exposed twelve-inch steel beam so his wife can entertain fourteen people from the country club."
Marcus did not blink. His pen remained motionless on the blotter.
"And?"
"And they have already chosen the color of the paint for the nursery," I continued, my voice steady, devoid of heat, the voice of a clerk reading the minutes of a drainage board meeting. "They have already decided that sixty-eight is too old for four thousand square feet. They have already discussed the terms of my life estate in the garden shed."
Marcus looked down at his blotter for five seconds. When he looked up, his jaw was set with that hard, unyielding line that had made three generations of Richmond bank directors look at their shoes during loan arbitrations.
"What do you want to do, Pauline?"
I opened my canvas bag.
I took out the blue-backed deed to the property—six acres, the four-bedroom house, the timber barn, and the spring-fed pond.
Beside it, I laid the nineteen-eighty-nine will that David and I had executed together in this very room, which left everything to the survivor, and upon the survivor’s death, to our only son, Liam David Powell.
"I want the will revoked," I said.
Marcus didn't move. "A complete revocation?"
"A complete revocation," I said. "I want a new testamentary instrument drafted today. I want the real estate—every foot of dirt, every shingle, every timber—conveyed upon my death to the Virginia Land Conservancy, to be held in perpetuity as a public wildlife sanctuary named the David Powell Memorial Forest. The house is to be offered to the Department of Forestry as an educational field station for regional high school students."
"And Liam?" Marcus asked softly.
"Liam has his father’s watch," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the heavy gold pocket watch that David’s union had given him when he retired from the school board maintenance crew. "I will give it to him myself. He has his degree from the university, which we paid for with three seasons of timber cuts. He has his health, his corporate salary, and his wife's family from the country club. That is his inheritance."
"And the interim?" Marcus leaned forward, his pencil poised. "If you retain the fee simple title, Pauline, they are still living in the rooms. Under Virginia law, after thirty days without an objection, a family member can claim a tenancy-at-will. If Liam files an action for equitable contribution based on repairs or improvements—even if it’s just blue painter's tape and an architectural drawing—he can cloud your title for eighteen months while the chancery court hears the pleadings."
"I know," I said. "That is why I brought the second folder."
I laid the financial records on the desk.
"This is the bank account at First National," I told him. "David and I had seventy thousand dollars in certificates of deposit when he died. It was our emergency reserve. Over the last four months, Liam has asked for eight thousand dollars for 'relocation costs,' four thousand for their wedding reception shortfall, and two thousand for the maintenance on Harper’s car. Every dollar was drawn from the survivor's account."
"Did he execute promissory notes?"
"He told me he would 'square up' after his bonus cleared," I said. "He never signed a piece of paper."
Marcus let out a long, slow whistle through his teeth. He pulled the yellow pad toward him and began to write, the nib of his pen scratching against the paper with a dry, rhythmic urgency.
"We draft two instruments, Pauline," Marcus said, not looking up. "The first is the new Last Will and Testament, with an in terrorem clause that disinherits any beneficiary who challenges the probate by five cents. The second is an immediate Revocation of License and Notice to Vacate. We don't wait for February. We give them sixty days from January first to clear the property entirely. If they fail to surrender the keys by five o'clock on the twenty-eighth of February, the sheriff’s department serves the writ of possession on the twenty-ninth."
"Can you have the copies certified before three o'clock?" I asked.
May you like
Marcus looked up from his legal pad, his gray eyes shining with an ancient, protective fire.
"I have three notaries in this building, Pauline," he said. "And my grandson is the junior clerk in the probate registry. The ink will be dry before the snow reaches the river."
