“It sounds like you deserve the bequest a lot more than we do, Sarah. You obviously brought him a lot of comfort and joy, and saved us a lot of money,” Tom Harrison said as everybody nodded and smiled. “I'm sorry for your loss,” Tom added, which only made her cry harder.
“I really miss him,” she said, and they could see she did. Several of them almost wished they could put their arms around her, but didn't. She was the attorney, and they didn't know her, although all their emotions were running high. Stanley had affected them all profoundly, and shaken their respective worlds to the core.
“You made his last days a lot happier, from everything he said in that letter,” one of the women said kindly.
“Hell, yes, and you're almost a millionaire now,” Jake added, and Sarah laughed.
“I have no idea what I'll do with the money.” She made a good salary as a partner, shared in the firm's profits, and had never had big financial needs. There was really nothing she wanted. She was going to make some good, solid investments, in spite of Stanley's entreaties to do otherwise. She was hardly about to quit her job and start buying mink coats and taking cruises, although he might have liked that. But it wasn't Sarah's style to indulge herself, even now that she could. She saved a lot of what she made.
“Neither do we,” several voices said around the room. “We'll all have to figure out what to do with the money. It's obvious he wanted all of us to have a good life,” a man next to Jake said solemnly. He was seated between the cowboy from Texas and the policeman from New Jersey. She hadn't put faces to all the names yet. “And you, too, Sarah,” he added. “You heard what he said. Use it. Don't hoard it. Follow your dreams.” She had no idea what her dreams were. She had never taken the time to ask herself that question.
“I'm more of a hoarder than a spender,” Sarah admitted, and then she stood up, smiling at all of them. There were handshakes around the room, and hugs. Several people hugged her. Everyone looked as though they were in shock by the time they left. It had been an overwhelming morning. The receptionist called cabs for all of them, to get to the airport. Sarah's secretary handed each of them a manila envelope, with a copy of the will and whatever additional documents there were, about their investments. Their last word on the house was to sell it as it was. They instructed Sarah to put it on the market immediately, and get whatever she could for it. Tom Harrison had agreed to see it with her only to be polite, but she could tell, he wasn't interested in it, either. No one was. It was a white elephant in another city, which none of them wanted or needed. And they hardly even needed the money. The house on Scott Street meant nothing to them. It only meant something to her because it was beautiful, and because her beloved friend Stanley, now her benefactor to an incredible degree, had lived in the attic. But even she, with her newfound fortune, had no use for the house, although she had no voice in how it was disposed of. The decision to sell it had been theirs.
She left Tom Harrison in the conference room, and called Marjorie from her office. She told her their decision, and asked if she would mind meeting her at the house in half an hour, to show it to one of the heirs. But she said it was purely a visit of formality. They had each signed a release, instructing her to sell the house, in the condition it was presently in, at a price Sarah and Marjorie agreed on. They had left it all up to her.
“Are we going to get to doll it up a little?” Marjorie asked hopefully.
“I'm afraid not. They said to get a janitorial service in, get rid of the debris, like boards on the windows and curtains, and sell it the way we found it.” Sarah was still trying to wrap her mind around the bequest Stanley had given her, and recover from the loving words in his letter that had gone straight to her heart. For once, she sounded less businesslike, somewhat shaken, and distracted. With his loving words to her in the letter, and the astounding gift, she missed him more than ever.
“It's going to hurt our price, if we do that,” Marjorie said sadly. “I hate to sell a house like that as a fire sale. It deserves better than that. It'll be a real steal for someone to get that at a bargain-basement price.”
“I know. I hate to do it, too. But they don't want the headache. It doesn't mean anything to them, and after you divide it nineteen ways, in relation to everything else, the money doesn't mean much, either.”
“That's really too bad. I'll meet you there in half an hour. I have a showing at two, fairly close by. It shouldn't take us long, particularly if it's just a token visit, with no real interest behind it.”
“See you there,” Sarah promised, and went back to find Tom Harrison in the conference room. He was on his cell phone, talking to his office, and got off quickly.
