Lydia almost laughed, and the almost was enough to change the air. "She would have liked that sentence."
"Don't recruit me into missing her cleverly," Helen said, but the edge had dulled. She looked at Penrose. "The accounts. You said they still split."
"Yes. Modest, not nothing. The lake lot as well, which is mostly mud and taxes, but it is yours in common. Personal bequests as the letter says. The house is the exception, and it is entire." He slid a copy of the amendment across the table, not the original. "Ruth Keene has not been told the reading happened today. Your mother asked that the three of you hear it before she did, if the timing allowed. I was going to call her this evening. Given that Miss Harlan was not informed of the meeting, I will not pretend the plan was clean. I will call Ruth at five. If one of you wishes to be the person who tells her, you may say so now, and I will wait until six. I will not wait longer. She should not hear it from a neighbor who heard it from a clerk."
The offer sat on the table beside the copy. Mark shook his head. He was not ready to give Ruth anything, even news. Helen looked at her hands. She could imagine the call: her voice, Ruth's silence, the careful thanks, the suspicion under the thanks. She could not imagine doing it well.