A different voice this time.
A man’s voice. Young. Confident. Relaxed. A little bit cocky. A voice I’d heard say I love you a thousand times.
“Mom. Mom. Listen to me. I’ve got it handled. I just need her to sign a quitclaim before the will gets read. If I get the deed to the shop property in my name, or at least a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, the estate can’t touch it.”
My husband’s voice.
Recorded on August twenty-first. In my father’s back office. At my father’s desk. On one of those evenings when Ethan was “checking on the books” for me while I slept in a recliner beside my dying father.
Sitting directly underneath a camera. Ten feet from a black-and-yellow sign on the door that said THIS PROPERTY UNDER 24-HOUR AUDIO AND VIDEO SURVEILLANCE.
He’d never once looked up.
He looks at the walls, Dad had said. But Ethan only ever looked at the walls to figure out what they were worth. He never looked to see what was watching him.
“And if she refuses?” Marjorie’s voice came through the speaker. Smooth as silk.
“She won’t,” said Ethan. “She’s grieving. She’ll be a wreck. She’ll do anything I ask. I just have to keep her emotional until it’s done.”
“What about the will?”
“I’ll have Pruitt look at it. If it doesn’t go our way, we contest it. Undue influence. Lack of capacity. The old man’s on a morphine drip half the time, right? Heart drugs? Pain meds? It’s practically textbook. Any judge will see it.”
“And the house on Linden?”
“Closing’s in December. I already talked to the mortgage guy about pre-approval. Don’t worry, Mom. By Christmas, it’ll be ours.”
The recording ended.
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.