Protected from Suki.
At the bottom of the letter, written in different ink, as if Walter had added it later, were the words that finally broke me.
I am sorry I did not say this sooner. I saw it coming for a long time. I just did not want it to be true.
I folded the letter and held it for a while.
Then I called our real family attorney, Elaine, who had known us for twenty years, and told her everything.
What followed was not quick.
And it was not easy.
But it was thorough.
Mr. Ferris, it turned out, had not been retained by Denton. Not jointly. Not by any legitimate representative of Walter’s estate.
He had been retained by Suki directly, using a credit card in her own name.
Six weeks before Walter died.
Six weeks.
Which meant she had known, or suspected enough to prepare, before the rest of the family had been told anything.
When Elaine uncovered that through billing records Mr. Ferris had not been careful enough to hide, it opened a different kind of question.
How had Suki known about Walter’s condition?
Who had told her?
The answer came from an unexpected place.
There was a woman who had worked as an administrative assistant at Walter’s doctor’s office for eleven years. Her name still makes me close my eyes when I think about it, because the connection was so old and so thin that no one thought to look for it.
Years earlier, back in college, Denton had dated her briefly before he ever met Suki.
Suki had found her.
Maintained a quiet relationship with her over the years.
And when Walter’s diagnosis came through, that woman made a phone call she never should have made.
She lost her job.
She faced a licensing board review.
She never worked in health care again.
Suki was served with papers related to the unauthorized disclosure of protected medical information. There were civil proceedings. Eventually, there was a settlement I am not permitted to discuss in specific terms.