There was one more phone call I needed to make before I started planning. It was the hardest one.
I called my father on a Saturday morning, when I knew Mom would be at her book club.
Dad, Don Brandt, is sixty-eight. He’s a retired union electrician, a quiet, heavyset man who has spent forty years letting my mother run the household while he reads the sports page. He’s not a talker. But he doesn’t lie.
“Dad, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be straight with me.”
“Okay.”
“Has Susette ever talked to you and Mom about your will?”
The silence that followed was long enough that I thought the call had dropped.
“How did you know about that?” he finally said.
“I didn’t. I guessed.” I took a breath. “Dad, she’s pushed half the family out of Christmas over the last six years. Viv, Pete, the cousins, us. I’ve been trying to figure out why. The only thing that makes sense is that she wanted to be the only family around you and Mom.”
Dad let out a long, slow breath.
“Two years ago,” he said, “Susette drove your mother and me to see a lawyer in Ridgewood. A man named Fairbanks. She said every couple our age needed an updated estate plan, and she’d already made the appointment. Your mother thought it was thoughtful.”
“What happened at the appointment?”
“Susette sat in on the whole thing. Garrett too. By the end of it, we’d signed new wills. Garrett’s the executor. And the shore house in Lavallette goes to Garrett and Susette.” He paused. “Everything else gets split between you two boys. But the shore house goes to them.”
The shore house was a little gray-shingled bungalow two blocks from the beach in Lavallette that my grandfather bought in 1964. We’d spent every summer of my childhood there. It was the most valuable thing my parents owned besides their home. Probably worth seven hundred thousand dollars now.
“Did you want that, Dad?”
“Susette said it made sense. She said Garrett and Poppy used it more than you did. She said you were busy with the business and probably wouldn’t want the upkeep.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother agreed. I just signed where they told me to.”
I sat on the back steps with the phone against my ear.
“Dad, I’m not calling about the shore house. I don’t care about the shore house. If you want Garrett to have it, that’s your decision, and I’ll respect it.”
“But?”
“But I want it to be your decision. Yours and Mom’s. Not Susette’s.”
He was quiet for a long time.
“I’ll think about it,” he said finally.
That was more than I’d ever gotten out of my father in my life.
Here’s where my job came in handy.
I have a commercial kitchen, professional equipment, supplier accounts, and a staff. I cook for two hundred people on a regular Tuesday. If anyone in this family was qualified to throw a real Christmas dinner, it was me.
But I didn’t want it to be a competition. I didn’t want drama. I just wanted to cook dinner for my family. My actual family, not Susette’s curated version of it.
I started planning in February. That might sound early, but anyone in the events business will tell you that early planning is the difference between a great event and a disaster.
Nadia and I decided to keep it simple. We were hosting Christmas this year. Open invitation to everyone. No strings attached. Just come eat and be with family.
I didn’t make a big announcement. I called people one at a time, starting with the ones Susette had pushed out.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.