Chapter 4 - The First Phone Call
My mother called on a Tuesday, ten weeks after the funeral.
I was standing at the counter with a mug of coffee going cold beside me, reading a document Harold had emailed about transferring the trust. Her name lit up the screen. I let it ring four times. Then I answered.
"Cora." Her voice was gentle. Gentler than I'd heard it in years. "I've been thinking about you a lot lately."
"Have you."
"I know it's been a terrible few months." A pause. "We've all been grieving too, you know. In our own way."
I set the document down.
"How's Vivian?"
"She's doing well. She asks about you all the time." A longer pause. "Cora, someone mentioned you've been meeting with lawyers."
And there it was.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Your cousin Diane saw your car parked downtown. She said something to your aunt, and your aunt said something to me." Her tone slid, casual sitting right on top of careful. "Is everything all right? Is there some kind of trouble with Marcus's estate?"
"No trouble," I said.
"Because if you're in over your head with any of that, your father knows people. He could make a few calls. You shouldn't be dealing with it by yourself."
I looked at the number across the top of the page.
"I'm not by myself," I said. "I have Harold."
"Who's Harold?"
"Marcus's attorney."
"Oh." A beat. "Well. If you ever need your family —"
"Mom." I kept my voice flat. "What do you actually want to know?"
Silence.
Then: "I just want to be sure you're being taken care of."
"I am."
"And there's nothing the rest of us should know about? No big decisions being made that affect —"
"Affect what?" I said. "Finish the sentence."
She didn't. She switched tracks instead, warming her voice in that smooth, rehearsed way that had always made me feel handled instead of loved.
"We'd like to see you, Cora. It's been far too long. Your father thinks a family dinner would do everybody good. Just to reconnect. Vivian really misses you."
"Vivian hasn't called me one single time since the accident."
"She didn't know what to say. You know how she is."
"I know exactly how she is."
"Cora —"
"I have to go," I said. "I have a meeting."
I hung up, stood still for a moment, then carried my mug to the sink and poured it out. Stone cold.
Harold called that afternoon with a timeline update. I told him about my mother.
He was quiet for a moment. "Did she come right out and ask about the estate?"
"She circled it about four times. Never landed."
"She will," he said. "In my experience they always do. I want you ready for it."
"I'm ready."
That evening, Vivian called. Not my mother this time. Vivian herself.
"Hey," she said, like nothing had happened. Like three caskets and an empty church and a text about a birthday brunch had never existed.
"Vivian."
"Mom said you two talked today. I'm really glad." Her voice was bright, almost bubbly. "I've been wanting to reach out, I just — you know how it is. I never know what to say in situations like this."
"Situations like this," I repeated.
"You know what I mean."
"My husband and my kids d*ed, Vivian. That's the situation. You can say the words."
A short silence. "I know. And I'm sorry. I really am." The brightness dropped a notch but didn't leave. "Look, Mom mentioned a dinner. I honestly think it'd be good for all of us. We could sit down, really talk, and just be a family again."
"We were always a family," I said. "You just didn't show up."
"That's not fair —"
"I have to go."
May you like
I hung up, sat down at the kitchen table, and opened my laptop. That night I typed the first rough outline of what would eventually become the Marcus Rourke Family Resource Foundation.
I didn't know it yet, but my family had already started drawing up plans of their own — and not one of them had anything to do with honoring Marcus.
