she wondered. Was there some trick to looking professional she didn’t know about?
The superficial questions made her feel guilty, so she quickly applied a single layer of tinted lip gloss and declared herself ready.
All three kids were in the kitchen at breakfast when she came down. Charlie was glued to the Cartoon Network, as usual, and Ashley was eating applesauce from a plastic bowl. Cameron was bent over a physics textbook, holding his head in his hand while glowering at the page. Sean had gone to see Red Corliss before the meeting.
“Hi!” Ashley banged her spoon, then held it out to Lily. “Taste.”
Lily pretended to have a bite. “Mmm, delicious.” She reached over and turned down the volume of the blaring cartoons. Once things settled down, she was going to have to curb all the TV watching. Living in a house full of children was like visiting a third world country, a place filled with color, noise and strange smells. She had been doing her best to bring order to chaos, but things kept getting away from her.
“I’m off to my meeting,” she announced. “I’ll be gone for a couple of hours, I imagine. Cameron, you’re in charge.”
“Got it,” he said in a bored voice.
“Got it,” Ashley echoed. “Out.” She squirmed in her seat.
“Cameron will take care of you,” Lily said, placing a kiss on the child’s head on her way toward the door.
As Lily drove to the downtown law offices, she had the strange feeling that this was not her life anymore. She was living someone else’s life, with children and a host of responsibilities so numerous she couldn’t even begin to address each one adequately.
An offhand promise to a friend—I’ll look after your kids, no problem—had turned into a commitment she was completely unequipped to make. She had taken the entire week off school, but come Monday, she had to go back to her own house, to her job. Life had to go forward for all of them, and that would be one of the topics of today’s meeting.
The law offices of Logan, Schwab and Fuller were plush and quiet. She was ushered into a conference room where everyone was assembled—Sean Maguire and Red Corliss, Sean’s father, Patrick, and Derek’s girlfriend, Jane Coombs, and her own lawyer. Frances Jamison, Crystal’s divorce attorney, was present as well, Lily saw with a small eddy of relief. Everyone else was here for Derek.
Not quite, she observed as Susie Shea entered the room. The social worker was there as the children’s advocate.
Peter Logan, looking like an elder statesman in his couture suit, opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and consulting a voluminous folder of papers.
“Thank you for being here, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I’d like to express my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Derek and Crystal Holloway. I know their loss is deeply felt.”
Lily sneaked a glance at Sean. It had been the strangest of weeks, living with this man. He obviously cared about the children, but when it came to parenting them, he was as lost as Lily. He looked haggard but paid close attention as Logan read down a list of declarations. Next to Sean, his father, Patrick, appeared well rested and full of vitality. He was an immensely handsome man, tall and lean, with abundant salt-and-pepper hair. As Derek’s stepfather, he was the only grandparent the children had, utterly charming, with smooth manners and a winning smile. It was funny, though. When Lily looked into his eyes, she didn’t see much.
People perked up as Logan reached the meat of the reading—the disposition of Derek’s estate. There were bequests to Red Corliss, Travis Jacobs, Patrick Maguire and several other associates of Derek. He left his brother all of his clubs. Sean looked neither pleased nor disappointed. Lily couldn’t read his expression.
“The remainder of my estate, such state consisting of—” Logan passed copies of a list around “—shall be equally divided among my beloved children, Cameron Craig Holloway, Charlene Louise Holloway and Ashley Baird Holloway. If they are of minor age at the time of my death, the inheritance is to be held in trust by Crystal Baird Holloway, or in the event that she is not available, my brother, Sean Michael Maguire, until such time as they gain their majority.”
The final disposition fell into a silence so profound that Lily could hear the man next to her—Jane’s lawyer—breathing. So Jane had been stiffed, thought Lily. Well, well, well.
The reading went on, answering the question of who