It had simply moved beyond Diane’s reach.
My phone began ringing again before I finished reading.
This time, I answered.
Diane did not say hello.
“What did you do?”
Her voice no longer carried the polished warmth she had used at the microphone.
I leaned back against the seat.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Behind her I could hear voices, chairs moving, someone asking whether there had been an accounting error.
The party was still happening.
But the mood had changed.
“Seventeen million dollars has been removed from the trust,” Diane said.
“No,” I replied.
“It was administered according to an existing trust document.”
“Do not play games with me.”
“I’m not.”
“You had no authority to do this.”
“The independent trustee disagrees.”
Silence.
That sentence landed harder than anything I could have shouted.
Diane lowered her voice.
“You need to reverse it immediately.”
“I can’t reverse my mother’s signature.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
“What signature?” she asked.
There it was.
She truly had not known.
I looked at the attachment again.
“The one dated before you married Dad.”
I heard her inhale.
Then Meredith’s voice came from farther away.
“What is she saying?”
Diane ignored her.
“Come back upstairs.”
Twenty minutes earlier I had been “this woman.”
Now she wanted me back in the ballroom.
“No.”
“Laura, this affects the entire family.”
“So did throwing me out.”
“That was a misunderstanding.”
I actually smiled.
“You used a microphone.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You arrived intending to create a problem.”
“I arrived carrying Dad’s retirement gift.”
For the first time, Diane had no immediate answer.
Then she tried the weapon she had used on me for years.
Guilt.
“Your father is devastated.”
I glanced toward the hotel.
“My father was three steps away.”
Diane went quiet.
I continued.
“If he wants to speak to me, he can call me himself.”
