The Heirs

by Susan Rieger

  They went inside. Eleanor smiled at Ingrid but made no attempt to nuzzle her or hold her. “Do you want her?” Jack asked. Eleanor shook her head. “Let’s give her time to get used to me.”

  “I didn’t want a child,” Jack said, settling on the sofa, “but Kate did. I did something, sort of, for someone else.” Eleanor sat in a chair across from Jack. Ingrid stared at her grandmother. “At first, I was afraid I’d be displaced,” Jack said. “The baby would get all the attention. What about me? What about me? Then, I was afraid I’d have one like me.” He gave a half smile. “I don’t know why you and Dad didn’t beat me, or lock me in one of the Hotel’s attic rooms, or ship me off to a military school.”

  “Your brothers dented your consciousness, but Dad and I couldn’t,” Eleanor said. “It was good you were the fourth and not the first. I didn’t take it personally.”

  “Why is it we’re always afraid of the wrong things?” he said. He looked at his mother, then looked away. “I left Ingrid at home alone when she was only three weeks old. I forgot I was babysitting and went out to a last-minute gig.” He paused. “When I got home, six hours later, Kate and Ingrid were gone. Kate left a note. It was very short: ‘I was half-tempted to call Children’s Services on you.’ ” Eleanor said nothing. “We’re still separated, but Kate lets me see Ingrid so long as someone else is in the house.” He paused again. “I hired a full-time nanny. Kate can’t forgive me. She said I was a monstrous egoist. I don’t know what to do.” He started crying. Ingrid looked up at him, then started crying. Eleanor reached over and took the baby from him, murmuring softly, as if to both of them, “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK.”

  “Kate’s thinking of moving to DC, near her folks,” Jack said. “My playing’s gone to hell.” He looked at his mother, tears streaming down his face. “I’m so ashamed.”

  “Did you tell that to Kate?” Eleanor asked.

  “I’ve apologized,” he said.

  “Did you tell Kate you were ashamed?” she asked. He shook his head. “I’d start there,” she said. He opened his mouth to speak. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  “I’m an exuberant trumpet player. I need to be happy to play,” Jack said.

  He got up and went to the phone.

  Eleanor stood up; the baby tucked her head into her grandmother’s neck. “Ingrid and I are going to take the morning air.”

  Kate returned with Ingrid a month after Eleanor’s visit. “I’m not optimistic,” she said to Jack. “You’re on parole.”

  Jack called his mother. “They’re back. For now.” Eleanor couldn’t remember a call from Jack that hadn’t to do with his trumpet. “I think it was more the full-time nanny than me.” He paused. “My playing’s getting better. I can’t blow this.”

  —

  Old Gosford, when confronted with the firm’s dilatoriness, was patronizing. “It’s not so easy a thing to do,” he said. “If you give them any money, Mrs. Wolinski will go straight back to the Surrogate and say you’re recognizing her boys’ claim against Rupert’s estate.”

  He’s a useless idiot, Eleanor thought, correcting Rupert’s assessment. “Look, Gos,” she said, her tone more kindly than she felt, as if she were explaining bathroom hygiene to a four-year-old for the fifth time. “I’m not giving them any of Rupert’s money. I’m giving them my money, money I got from my father, my McDonald’s money.”

  “Oh, yes, well, but,” Gosford stammered, “setting up a Cayman account is dicey. Possibly illegal.”

  “I never said anything about a Cayman account. I want to be open about it. Mrs. Wolinski will have to pay taxes. And there will be trustees, people with telephone numbers and addresses in the United States.”

  Gosford was silent, out of chagrin or cunning Eleanor couldn’t say.

  “I understand,” she said. “The firm doesn’t want to do it. I’m fine with that.” Eleanor’s tone shifted slightly, a cold edge stealing in. “I’m moving law firms, Gos. I’ve retained Carlo Benedetti. That’s why I called.” She paused. Her tone shifted again, into a lower register. “I can’t imagine I owe you money. In ten months, you haven’t done anything.”

  Gosford sprang to life. “It’s a misunderstanding, Eleanor,” he said.

  “No, Gos, it’s not that. You’ve let me down.”

  “We’ll try again,” he said. “We’ll do it right.”

  “No,” she said. “If I do owe money, send an itemized bill. We’ll speak again, as friends. Regards to all.” As she hung up, she wondered whether young Gosford had cried when he found he’d backed himself into a corner.

  Carlo Benedetti set up the trust. He, Eleanor, and Will were the trustees. Eleanor funded the trust with seven hundred thousand dollars of her father’s McDonald’s money. Interest, estimated at seven percent a year, would go to Vera, giving her forty-nine thousand dollars a year before taxes, thirty-eight thousand after. Taxes would be taken out before distribution. She would be paid monthly. There could be no invasion without permission of the trustees. At her death, the trust would settle in equal shares on Hugh and Iain. Carlo notified the Wolinskis, making it clear that Eleanor, and not Rupert’s estate, was the funder. Hugh and Iain both wrote brief notes of thanks, their surprise almost overtaking their appreciation. “I don’t know what to think or say,” Hugh wrote. “Thank you for looking after our mother.” Vera sent Eleanor a three-lined note: “Your husband should have provided for me and my sons in his will. What kind of man has his wife pay support to his mistress?”

  —

  Carlo proposed to Eleanor the day he filed the trust. “I can’t marry my lawyer,” Eleanor said. “Conflict of interest.”

  “I resign,” he said.

  “You’ve already been married three times,” she said. “Why would you do it again?”

  “I want to marry you. I’ve wanted to marry you for years,” he said. “I’ve loved you for years. Longer than Rupert. I married the others because you wouldn’t have me. I divorced them because they weren’t you.” He paused. “Tell me again why you married Rupert?”

  “I liked the way he danced,” she said.

  —

  Dominic’s letter to Eleanor came as a surprise. “I’m getting married,” he wrote. “Her name is Bridget Farrell. She’s only forty, but kind and good and plainly not marrying me for my money. She teaches history at a local grammar school. We might even have children. My friends here all call me out for marrying someone so young. I tell them I was in love with a woman older than I, but she wouldn’t have me.”

  Eleanor sent Dominic and Bridget a Persian rug, the one from Rupert’s library. “Rupert would want you to have this,” she wrote in her note. “Wishing you happiness and contentment in each other.”

  —

  Lea let Harry come home after two months. “Every dog gets one bite,” she said to him, “but only one. If you do it again, we’re through. That’s a promise.” Harry had been wretched away from Lea and his daughters. “I won’t do it again. I love you,” he said. “The girls don’t have to go to church.”

  “I don’t know why I did it,” he said to Sam. “She came on to me.”

  “That makes it less your fault, I take it,” Sam said. He stared at his brother. “You’re a good man, Harry, but you’re a schmuck. You need to take responsibility for what you do. And, for chrissakes, stop blurting. None of us, Lea, Mom, me, want to hear your confessions. Maybe you should become a Catholic. They have priests who’ll listen. Or try analysis.”

  “I can’t help it. I say it before I know I’ve said it. I do it everywhere. It gets me in trouble at the law school too.”

  “You could stop justifying what you’ve blurted. That is in your control.”

  “I’m a lawyer, Sam,” Harry said. “I argue. It’s second nature.”

  “You’re doing it again, schmuck,” Sam said.

  —

  Eleanor called Jack and laid out her plan for the trust. He thought it a great idea. “I liked those boys. If they were our brothers, we
could be heroes, seven of us, like Seven Samurai.”

  “How’s Kate?” Eleanor asked.

  “Holding,” he said. “I think Ingrid has perfect pitch.”

  “At seven months.”

  Jack laughed. “An infant prodigy.”

  Tom also approved of the trust. “Good day’s work, Mom,” he said. “Didn’t Freud say money was shit? We should spread it around, like manure, to make things grow.”

  The phone went quiet. “Are you there?” Eleanor said.

  “I’m changing the subject. I have news,” Tom said.

  “Yes,” Eleanor said.

  “We’re adopting a little girl. Lila. She’s three. She’s been in three foster homes. They all wanted to adopt her. Her mother wouldn’t allow it. She’s finally relinquished her rights. She told the social worker, ‘I wanted someone who’d educate her right.’ ”

  “Wonderful news. I’m so happy for you both. I wondered…” She stopped.

  “Caroline wanted a baby but I couldn’t see it; too many humans already on the planet. This will be good. She’s very sweet.” Tom laughed. “She’s blond.”

  As she hung up, Eleanor wondered at the self-centeredness of her sons. Only Will, most like his father, was exempt. When do they finally grow up? she asked herself. She had thought she had taken the long view with them. She had thought forty was the horizon. “Perhaps it’s fifty now.” She decided to go to the movies. Mystic River was playing around the corner.

  —

  Sam and Harry were both annoyed that Will had been named a Wolinski trustee. “Why Will?”

  “He didn’t interfere with my plans,” Eleanor said.

  “Aren’t you glad we met with Hugh?” Sam said. “You found out you’ll never find out.”

  “He didn’t want the money,” Harry said. “You didn’t need to do it.”

  “The money goes to them only if Vera doesn’t spend it all,” Eleanor said.

  “I thought the trust can’t be invaded,” Harry said.

  “Not without permission of the trustees,” Eleanor said. “We’ll give permission. Another reason not to have either of you as trustee.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Harry said.

  Eleanor stared at him. “I’m settling your father’s just debts.”

  —

  Gemma Bowles Phipps Falkes was born on October 18, 2003. Susanna and Sam were giddy with happiness. She was named for Granny Bowles. Sam handed out Cubans. He had a friend who had a friend who had an acquaintance who had a supplier. “It’s easier to get cocaine than Cubans,” he said to his mother. “Cheaper too.”

  “I don’t want to know this,” Eleanor said.

  Gemma was born with a thatch of black hair, “breaking the Rupert spell,” Eleanor thought. Four weeks later, her dark hair fell out; the hair coming in was white-blond.

  A week after the birth, Andrew called Sam. “How could you do it,” he said. “How could you do it?” He was crying. “I wanted a child. We’ve been over and over this,” Sam said. He waited until Andrew caught his breath. “I hope you get what you want too.” He hung up.

  “Who was that?” Susanna said.

  “Rumpelstiltskin,” Sam said.

  Sam and Susanna had moved into their Siamese apartments two weeks before Gemma was born. They kept the door between them open so Sam could come and go. He hired a full-time housekeeper. He bought groceries and wine and stacked both dishwashers. Eleanor gave them each a set of the Christofle silver.

  “I sometimes feel bad about Andrew, but mostly not. He was awful to me,” Susanna said. She looked down at her baby lying on her lap, snuffling like a piglet. “Isn’t she beautiful,” Susanna said.

  Sam reached down to stroke Gemma’s small head. “Who does she look like?” he asked. “Does she look like me?”

  “Around the eyes,” Susanna said. “Isn’t she beautiful.”

  “She’s funny-looking,” he said, “like all newborns.” Susanna glared at him. He backtracked. “Perhaps a little less.”

  Susanna swatted his hand away. “I require adoration from her father,” she said.

  “I didn’t have that kind of father. We had to do something to get his attention, let alone approval,” Sam said.

  “I miss him,” Susanna said. Sam nodded.

  “I still haven’t heard from my father,” she said. “Or my mother.”

  “You are a miracle,” Sam said. “Gemma is a miracle.”

  He went out of the room briefly, returning with a small box. “For you,” he said. “He’d have wanted it.” Susanna opened the box. Inside was Rupert’s Patek Philippe watch. “I can’t. It’s yours,” she said.

  “You must,” he said. “It’s right. I claimed it for you.” He took the watch out of the box and fastened it on her wrist. It hung loosely, like a bracelet. Holding Gemma against her body, Susanna wept.

  —

  Hannah Bigelow’s letter, coming on the fourth anniversary of Rupert’s death, was a jolt. Everyone had finally settled down. Eleanor held on to it for two weeks before telling the boys. Carlo was indignant. “A Gypsy fraud if ever I heard of one.” He looked at Eleanor. “What is it?” he asked. She had closed her eyes.

  “It’s the photograph,” Eleanor said. “Another wretched photograph.”

  The photograph had come with the letter. It showed a young family, standing in front of a Gothic church, in coats, probably in the 1930s, a father, a mother holding an infant, and three small children, the oldest no more than three.

  The letter read:

  10 April 2004

  Dear Mrs. Falkes,

  I write on behalf of my late mother, Helen Sonnegaard, who died four months ago at age 97. In her will she left five thousand pounds to her son Anders Sonnegaard or, in the event of his death, his heirs. Along with my older brothers, Charles and Antony Sonnegaard, I began a search for Anders. We have good reason to believe he was your late husband, Rupert Falkes.

  On March 1, 1934, my parents Bastian and Helen Sonnegaard, gave up a one-month-old baby boy, called Anders, to St. Pancras Orphanage in Chichester, England, run by the Reverend Henry Falkes. My father, a schoolteacher, had lost his job six months earlier. My mother, also a schoolteacher, had not worked since my oldest brother, Charles, was born. I was 10 months old, Anders was 20 months, Charles was 31 months. My mother’s parents, old and ill, had taken in our family in the New Year. It fell to my mother to keep house for everyone. She could not manage with a brand-new baby and three other small children. The times were desperate.

  My parents kept track of Anders for the next twenty years. They knew he had been renamed Rupert Falkes. They knew he had gone to the Prebendal School, Longleat and Cambridge. The Reverend Falkes died in 1954. At that point, they lost the connection. Anders/Rupert disappeared. My mother on her deathbed asked that we find him. We didn’t remember him. Our parents had never spoken of him. The Internet made a search possible. We found Rupert Falkes’s obituary in the New York Times. The details of his life, as described in the obituary, correspond to what we know of our brother. There is no making amends for what was done to Anders, but the family wishes to honour our mother’s will and provide his family with knowledge of his parentage. Anders was born January 30, 1934. My parents did not register his birth, knowing they would have to give him up. The enclosed photograph of our family was taken on the day Anders was left at St. Pancras. The church is behind us.

  If you sign the enclosed affidavit, we will notify our solicitors and provide you with a copy of the will.

  Yours,

  Hannah Sonnegaard Bigelow

  c/o PO Box 45655, Havant PO9 7AE England

  “I didn’t so much mind the Wolinskis. They were Rupert’s doing, or not,” Eleanor said. “But these people, making themselves known now, after he’s dead…” She looked to Carlo. “They’re seventy years too late. May I throw out the letter?”

  “No. You need to stop them. You need to disavow the connection and disclaim the bequest. Anything else opens the door. Sig
ning the affidavit would be acknowledging the relationship. Before you know it, they’re on a plane over here, ready to move into the Hotel, threatening to sue for a share of Rupert’s estate.” Carlo stopped. “It’s a lawyer’s letter,” he said. “I wonder why the solicitor didn’t send it.”

  Eleanor called a family conclave. They thought Hannah Bigelow might be a fraud; still, they’d have liked to meet her and her brothers.

  “The children are towheads,” Tom said, pointing at the photo, willing to give money to almost anyone.

  “All English children are,” Sam said.

  “They could have reconstructed his history from the obituary and then got hold of his birth certificate. Basic sleuthing,” Harry said.

  “How did they know about Reverend Falkes?” Jack asked.

  “I think his name was on Dad’s birth certificate, as guardian or some such,” Sam said. “But he was the local priest in Chichester, the head of the orphanage, with, lo, Dad’s name.”

  “Enough money to make the bequest plausible, though not up to the Nigerians,” Will said.

  “Good letter, dignified with a hint of stoical grief underneath, good photo,” Harry said. “If it’s really them.”

  “Do they exist, these Sonnegaard Bigelows?” Sam said.

  “There is a Hannah Bigelow in Havant, at 16 Fairfield Road. Carlo found the address,” Eleanor said. “I don’t know why she only gave a PO.”

  “Let’s call her,” Jack said.

  All five looked at their mother, their faces full of innocent expectation, as if they were boys again, imploring her to let them stay up past midnight, “Can we, can we? Please, please, please?” Years spent reading Sherlock Holmes, the Hardy Boys, and Encyclopedia Brown had prepared them for this moment.