The Inheritance
written by: Isabella Attard
As I entered the room and clocked the people there, I mentally congratulated myself on my choice of outfit. The agonizing debate with my inner self had paid off, and I strode confidently to an empty chair, pulled it out, and sat primly on the edge of the seat, acknowledging the stares and raised eyebrows with a nod and a carefully practiced half smile.
The man at the head of the table, he with the reams of paper on the table in neat piles in front of him, glanced at his watch then picked up a single sheet from one pile.
‘And you must be…,’ he started.
‘Eva Guthrie,’ I announced.
‘Yes. Good morning, Ms. Guthrie. Good of you to join us.’
I was about to offer excuses, citing long traffic jams and urgent emails that needed immediate answers, but the same voice inside me that had convinced me to wear this dress suit, insisted I preserve my dignity and remain silent, allowing the smile to speak for itself.
‘I’m Dr. Lang,’ continued the man, ‘the notary charged with reading Mr. Guthrie’s last will and testament to his surviving heirs.’
I glanced around at the three other people sitting around the table. Were they feeling as excited as I was? If so, they were certainly hiding their emotions very effectively. Just as I hoped I was.
‘I take it you all know each other?’
The others mumbled and nodded in the affirmative. Dr. Lang was about to proceed, but I needed some clarification. Ignoring the inner call to composure, I stuck my elbows firmly on the table, leaned forward, and pointed at the person sitting directly opposite me.
‘So you must be Michael, and you…’ I needed to put faces to the names I hadn’t heard for years.
‘No, dear,’ sighed the only other woman in the room. ‘He’s Michael and that’s Roger, my twin. I’m Rita,’ she said, seeming to relish the opportunity to set me right.
‘Right, of course. So,’ I tried again, ‘you’re Aunt Nora’s kids and your father was Uncle Robert.’
There was a general rolling of eyes at the fact that I clearly had no clue of the family connections and hadn’t even bothered to prepare myself. I kicked myself for being so remiss.
Before my blushes could take center stage, a gentle yet firm cough steered our attention back to Dr. Lang.
‘Perhaps we should not have overlooked the formality of introductions.’ Impassive. Practical. Professional.
With an open palm, Dr. Lang indicated the slim, well-turned-out gentleman to my right. ‘Michael Black, only child of Nora and Maurice Black.’ The rather sombre person nodded unsmilingly.
Dr. Lang’s hand swung across the table. ‘And here we have Rita and Roger Guthrie, twins, born to Rebecca and Robert Guthrie.’
Of course, how could I have forgotten the ‘rather rotund rug rats’ as my father liked to call them? Not that I had known them when they were that young – but although they were, I assumed, no longer given to crawling around, they hadn’t lost any of their corpulence.
‘And this,’ the hand settled in my direction, ‘is Eva Guthrie, only child of Evelyn and Jack Guthrie. You are all present for the reading of the last will and testament of Edmund Guthrie, unmarried and without progeny, brother to Nora, Robert, and Jack. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.’
‘Hello, cousins,’ I jollied in an attempt to dissipate the tension that had crept into the room. The silent cynical stares would have made a lesser soul quail. I smiled at my older cousins hoping to reassure them that I was no upstart crow. And then my smile froze. Why should I care? I didn’t know these people. They weren’t even pretending to be civil, so enough with the playacting. I was here to see what Uncle Edmund had left me, just as they were. I had no idea what sort of a relationship they had had with Uncle Edmund who had been, to all intents and purposes, an unknown quantity. He had spent much of his time in various countries doing some of this, a whole lot more of that and no end of the other. I had only met him a handful of times – all of them before I was a teenager – then life intervened and hurled my parents and myself out of his circle and away from the influence of the rest of the family. My parents had never spoken of him to me so, while I was aware of his existence, I didn’t really know much about him other than he approximated the status of the raven-colored ovine in our family. Every family’s got to have one, right? There always seemed to be something mysterious about Uncle Edmund, maybe simply because he wasn’t spoken about so often. I hadn’t thought of him in years and I couldn’t have been more surprised to receive a summons to hear his will read out, having been named an heir. I had no idea what his estate was worth. Had he been rich? Was I about to have all my financial worries magically laid to rest?
Dr. Lang interrupted my musings by heaving a small sack onto the table. It thudded hollowly onto the polished surface and couldn’t have looked more incongruous. Dr. Lang’s expression remained unreadable; the twins visibly turned their noses up in disdainful dismay; Mr. Black appeared disinterested.
Dr. Lang riffled through the papers in front of him, selected one and held it up.
‘To each of the survivors of my siblings,’ he read, ‘I would like to say that although I don’t know any of you, I would like to bequeath you something precious that I hope you will cherish and that you will, in turn, pass on to the next generation.’
We all snuck supposedly surreptitious looks at each other. We were equally clueless.
Dr. Lang now stood and made a great show of opening the sack, delving deep within and drawing out one small, plain, wooden box. Then another and twice more until four identical boxes were placed in a line in front of the towers of papers. Dr. Lang folded the sack and laid it gently on the floor.
The boxes were unmarked. Dr. Lang glanced through his instructions again, said nothing but handed one box to each of us, starting with Mr. Black, as the eldest, then the twins, and finally me. Weirdly, everyone waited until I had my box, then we turned all our attention to opening our given box.
Before I opened mine, I held it in my hand. It was small enough to sit comfortably on my palm. It felt light. I shook it gently but nothing rattled. Was it empty? Had Uncle Edmund called us together for this elaborate charade just to mock us? I took a deep breath, flipped open the hinged lid, and peered inside. There lay a little folded piece of paper. I drew it out and opened it up. The creases were pronounced and had worn the paper thin but there was no mistaking the image on the paper.
I looked at it. I looked at the scrawled message underneath. I looked up at my cousins.
They were each holding an identical piece of paper to mine – with the identical message. We were all struck dumb at the enormity of it.
Under a roughly-drawn picture of the earth, our uncle had written: My generation fucked up. Do better.
- The Inheritance - July 18, 2024
