The Legacy, Caroline Bond [popular books to read txt] 📗

there was spite. Liv didn’t like to admit it, but there was. How could there not be?

Liv realised that Noah and Chloe were both looking at her, waiting. She glanced down at her notes. ‘He called the solicitor’s in June, and the will was signed by the twenty-eighth. It was witnessed by two people who are members of staff at the solicitor’s.’

‘Why not one of us?’ Noah asked.

‘Because if you witness a will, you can’t be a beneficiary of it.’

Noah raised an ironic eyebrow, impressed by Liv’s legal knowledge, but programmed to mock it.

‘Ms Hewson told me. I thought it was strange as well.’

Noah stood up and started walking around the table. ‘This just gets weirder. Do you believe Dad was thinking straight?’

Liv and Chloe objected at the same time. ‘Noah!’

He held on to one of the chairs and stretched. ‘Again, can we all stop being so over-sensitive. He was ill, in pain, dying, very probably depressed; do you not think that might, conceivably, have affected his judgement?’

‘Ms Hewson said he was of sound mind. If he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have been able to draw up the new will.’

‘And that’s down to her to decide, is it?’

‘Yes, it is actually.’

‘So it stands. Even if Megan decides to challenge it?’ Noah queried.

‘Yes.’ Liv felt swamped by the lack of clarity and all the questions. They needed to move on and get down to deciding something.

‘I think she might,’ Chloe said.

‘What makes you say that?’ Noah seemed surprised when Chloe spoke, as if he’d forgotten she was in the room.

‘Just the way she’s been since he died.’ She stopped.

‘So you keep saying. What precisely do you mean by “the way she’s been”?’ Liv prompted.

‘Well, you’ve seen her. She’s all over the place. It’s like she’s here, but she’s not. She’s been drifting round the house like a ghost ever since he passed. Then she has these bursts when she goes manic – cleaning and shopping and cooking. Even on the night he died, she was strange. She seemed calm, but she was really quite aggressive with me. Like she was struggling to keep control.’

Liv found herself imagining how dreadful that night must have been, and having some sympathy for Megan. Chloe was not good in a crisis; not that good most of the time, if the truth be told.

Her sister went on, ‘And in the meeting at the solicitor’s, when you read out the details of the will – well, that was hardly a normal reaction, was it? She acted like a zombie, but inside I think she’s screaming.’

Liv didn’t want Chloe and Noah to go off on one of their ‘slag off Megan’ jaunts. It would waste time and oxygen. Besides, Ms Hewson had been very clear that the will was valid. ‘I don’t think laying into Megan is going to get us anywhere. She’s had a tough time. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t struggling at the moment. And this…’ she indicated all the paperwork spread across the tabletop, ‘can’t be helping. This mess is on Dad.’

Noah stopped prowling. ‘Hang on there, Liv. What do you mean: this is on Dad? In my book, he hasn’t done anything wrong. Unless I’m missing something.’ He paused.

Liv said nothing. There was no point, when Noah was in one of his self-important moods.

‘All he’s done is leave his legacy to us to decide, which I think is a good thing. Better than him leaving the lot to Megan.’

There was another long pause, during which neither Liv nor Chloe disagreed with him.

Chapter 17

MEGAN RETREATED upstairs, hurt that Angus hadn’t thought to invite her along on the trip out with the children. Even big, bluff, kind Angus excluded her – schooled, no doubt, by Liv.

She looked around the bedroom – their room, which had become hers. The stripping down of their marriage had been a series of tiny cuts and discreet incisions, but Jonathan’s move downstairs had been a stab-wound. It made sense, of course, especially after his fall. It was the only safe thing to do. And, as Lisa pointed out, it meant that Jonathan was closer to the action during the day – less isolated, more part of the household, which was good for his mood – but for Megan it had been a watershed moment, not just of losing more of Jonathan to the disease, but of losing another big chunk of him to Lisa.

Lisa.

A bit-part player in the grand scheme of things, but the person without whom she and Jonathan would never have got through the last seven months.

Was it really only seven months?

It felt like a lifetime.

Megan’s arms had been buried up to her elbows in the washing machine when the doorbell rang. Another candidate for the role of Jonathan’s PA. The washing load plopped wetly into the basket. She reached inside and peeled free a pair of pyjama bottoms that were stuck to the drum, but she had to leave the lone sock, because the bell rang again, more insistently this time.

This one was early.

Megan dried her hands hastily on a tea towel and straightened her jumper – there was no time for lipstick, her go-to ‘armour’. The bell rang a third time just as she reached for the door handle. All right, all right. I’m coming.

The woman standing on the doorstep smiled. ‘Hello. I’m Lisa, Lisa Browne.’ She was middle-aged, with short hair, average height, average weight, average-looking. She extended her hand. She had a firm, confident handshake.

‘Come through.’ Megan fixed on her welcome-smile. ‘I was about to make a coffee. Would you like one?’

‘No, thank you.’ So brisk efficiency it was going to be then.

Once they were settled, Megan asked the usual questions, using the CV that the agency had emailed over as her starting point. Lisa Browne had spent twenty-three years in the care sector, working in a mixture of nursing homes and in-home settings. Her résumé listed a series of employers, spread across the country. She had moved around quite a lot.