I wanted to drive straight to Scott's apartment.
Mom asked me to put down my car keys.
"If he filed a claim, there will be paperwork," she said.
"He had no right."
"We don't know what he said on the form."
"We know he didn't tell us."
She folded the letter from Andrew and placed it beside the watch.
"That part I know."
Andrew checked the state claim process.
He couldn't get Scott's private application simply because we were related.
He could notify the office that Mom and Dad's estate might have competing rights.
He could submit supporting documents and ask the office not to decide the matter without reviewing them.
He said false statements might have consequences, but there was no reason to make a criminal accusation without seeing the facts.
I was beginning to hear his caution in my sleep.
Mom, meanwhile, asked how to apply herself.
She collected her identification, marriage certificate, and Dad's death certificate.
Ms. Ortega prepared documents confirming her authority in the estate process.
We made copies at the library.
The machine jammed twice.
Mom laughed at how ridiculous it felt to be fighting with a copier over something that began inside a wristwatch.
Then she grew serious.
"Whatever is in that account, Jenny, I don't want it to destroy what's left of our family."
"Scott is doing a fine job of that himself."
"He is making choices," she said. "So am I."
She asked me to help, not to take over.
I promised.
Keeping that promise was harder than arranging any document.
Scott finally called me on Wednesday.
He sounded sober and frightened.
"Did Andrew tell you about the claim?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know Mom could make one."
"Why wouldn't she?"
"I thought it was Dad's estate money."
"Then why didn't you speak to the estate attorney?"
He sighed.
"Because I thought you'd tell me not to."
I waited.
He kept talking.
He'd found the state property listing online after seeing the old bank papers.
The listing allowed potential heirs to begin a claim.
He had submitted his name, our father's details, and a copy of the death notice.
The website had asked for additional evidence.
He hadn't provided it yet.
"Did you say you were the only heir?" I asked.
"No."
"Did you mention Mom?"
A pause.
"I put Dad's name."
"That's not what I asked."
"I didn't know how to fill everything out."
I closed my eyes.
"You should tell Andrew exactly what you submitted."
"Is he going to call the police?"
"I don't know. But you need to stop hiding things."
Scott's voice cracked.
"I thought I could fix the truck. I thought if there was money, I could finally get straight."
"You've been saying that for twenty years."
He didn't argue.
"I know."
Mom agreed to meet him at Andrew's office.
She said she wanted the conversation documented and free from shouting.
Scott complained that it sounded like a courtroom.
She replied that it was a meeting.
He arrived fifteen minutes early.
He wore a clean shirt and carried a folder with his claim confirmation and the photographs he'd taken from Dad's papers.
He gave the folder to Andrew.
"I don't want to be in trouble," he said.
"Then we should begin with what you did," Andrew answered.
Scott explained the website application.
Andrew said it could likely be withdrawn or corrected, depending on its status, and he would seek guidance from the state office.
Scott agreed to cooperate.
Mom didn't thank him.
She asked him why he'd taken the watch.
He looked at his hands.
"I was drinking. I was broke. I was angry at Dad for dying and leaving me nothing I knew how to use."
"He left you a father who spent his life trying to help you," she said.
Scott swallowed.
"I know."
"Do you?"
He started crying.
I hadn't seen him cry since he was a boy.
Mom handed him a tissue.
She did not take back her question.
He said he'd been drinking most nights after the funeral.
He said the money problems felt impossible.
He said he'd told himself Dad wouldn't care about the watch because otherwise he couldn't bear what he'd done.
Mom listened without interrupting.
Then she said, "Your father mattered. My grief mattered. You decided neither of those things mattered as much as what you wanted that night."
Scott looked at her.
"I'm sorry."
"I believe you're sorry now," she said. "I need to know what you will do differently."
He offered to help with house repairs.
She said that wasn't what she meant.
He offered to give her the forty dollars.
She shook her head.
"I want you to get help for the drinking. I want you to find work. And I want you to stop taking what isn't yours."
He said he'd try.
"You can do more than try to say the right thing in a room," she replied.
Andrew gave us a few minutes alone.
When he returned, Scott asked for information about local counseling and recovery services.
Mom offered to help him find the contact details.
She did not offer to pay his debts.
After the meeting, Scott and I stood beside our cars.
He looked older than forty-five.
"You hate me," he said.
"No."
"You look at me like you do."
"I don't trust you," I said. "That's different."
He nodded.
"Fair."
We stood in silence.
Then I asked whether he would actually make the appointment.
"I already called a place this morning," he said.
"Good."
"They have a group tomorrow."
I wanted to tell him I was proud.
I wasn't ready for that.
"Show up," I said.
He got into his truck.
For once he didn't ask me for gas money.
The meeting at Andrew's office left us all exhausted.
Mom suggested lunch afterward, but Scott said he needed to make a phone call before his afternoon shift.
He stayed in the parking lot while we went to a sandwich shop nearby.
I watched him through the window.
He walked back and forth beside his truck, one hand pressed to his ear.
"Do you think he's calling the recovery group?" I asked.
"I don't know," Mom said.
"Maybe he's calling somebody for money."
"Maybe."
She opened her sandwich wrapper.
"We agreed not to guess when we could wait for facts."
I hated how often she was right.
A few minutes later, Scott drove away.
He didn't come into the shop.
Mom finished her lunch and asked me to take her to the garden center.
She wanted potting soil and seed packets.
I told her spring was still weeks away.
"Seeds don't mind waiting," she said.
We spent an hour reading labels and comparing the light requirements for tomatoes and beans.
She chose the same varieties Dad had planted.
Then she chose two he'd never tried.
"I can change things," she said, placing the packets in her basket.
I smiled.
At home, we sorted the seeds into small envelopes.
Mom labeled each with the month she planned to plant it.
I asked whether she wanted to keep Dad's handwritten garden chart.
"Of course. But I don't have to follow every line."
We taped the old chart inside the shed door and hung her new chart beside it.
The two sets of handwriting looked completely different.
They belonged together anyway.
That evening, Mom's friend June came by with a casserole.
She had heard there were legal papers and wanted to know whether Mom was all right.
Mom told her that the matter was complicated and being handled by lawyers.
June asked whether there was money involved.
"Possibly," Mom said. "But that's not what I want to talk about tonight."
June nodded and changed the subject.
They discussed a church fundraiser and a neighbor's new puppy.
I was relieved to hear ordinary gossip again.
After June left, Mom said she was going to make a rule.
"Nobody gets to turn my husband's death into an invitation to ask what I own."
"That's a good rule."
"Including you," she added.
I raised my hands.
"Fair."
We laughed.
On Friday, Scott called and said he had attended the recovery meeting.
He described the room, the folding chairs, and the coffee in a chipped urn.
He didn't share other people's stories.
He said he'd mostly listened.
Mom asked whether he planned to return.
"Yes," he said.
"I'm glad."
She didn't demand a promise.
She didn't tell him one meeting had changed his life.
After the call, she sat for a while with Dad's old sweater in her lap.
"He would have wanted to hear that," she said.
I agreed.
She folded the sweater carefully.
"But Harold would also have called the man running the group to make sure Scott showed up."
"Probably."
"I won't."
She put the sweater away.
The decision seemed small.
For Mom, it was enormous.
The state accepted Mom's initial paperwork two weeks later.
The review remained pending.
Scott submitted a written withdrawal of his competing application after speaking to Andrew.
It did not settle who owned the property.
It did remove one obstacle.
The state's claim instructions were printed on heavy white paper.
Mom read the instructions with a ruler under each line.
She asked me to put the submission deadline on her calendar.
Then she made a folder marked STATE CLAIM.
Inside, she kept copies of everything that had been mailed.
The lawyer had warned us that processing could take weeks or months.
Mom said she understood.
The next day, she went to her weekly lunch with June.
I was surprised she'd made plans while we were waiting for an answer.
"What else would I do?" she asked.
"Sit by the phone, maybe."
"That's what I've been doing since Harold went into the hospital. I'm tired of waiting for someone to call with news."
At lunch, she and June talked about recipes and a broken fence.
When she came home, the phone had no messages.
She didn't seem disappointed.
On the following Monday, she showed me a list of questions for the recovery counselor Scott had mentioned.
She hadn't called the counselor.
She had written down questions she wanted to ask Scott himself about how she could support him without interfering.
"I don't want his treatment to become another project I manage," she said.
I told her that sounded sensible.
She folded the list and put it away.
"I'll ask when he's ready to talk."
For once, she meant it.
I put the new claim folder on the shelf beneath the family photographs.
Mom moved it to the cabinet.
"I'm not decorating my kitchen with paperwork," she said.
We both laughed.
Then we made coffee and talked about the weather.
Then Bell-Ridge's counsel sent another batch of records.
The papers included a letter from Thomas Bell to Dad, dated the month before Thomas's death.
Andrew read it first.
Then he asked Mom whether she wanted to see it in his office or at home.
She chose home.
We sat at her kitchen table under the yellow light.
The letter began with a confession.
Thomas wrote that he'd known Leonard Ridge had pressured Dad into signing away rights he didn't fully understand.
He wrote that he'd failed to intervene.
And he wrote that, before he died, he had tried to correct the records.
At the bottom was a name neither of us recognized.
Clara Bell.
Thomas said she had the original documents.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: Thomas Bell’s Daughter Shared the Documents and Recording Her Father Had Kept for Decades
The Folded Paper in My Father’s Watch Raised Questions My Mother Had Never Asked
Part 8 of 12
