Mrs. Reed arrived carrying a tin of biscuits and a folder wrapped in string. She was eighty-two and walked slowly, but she entered the blue room without hesitation.
“Evelyn asked me to come if anyone tried to sell,” she said. “I hoped I would never need to.”
The folder contained the original trust agreement. The house was Clara’s, but the other properties belonged to a community trust. Daniel could not sell them.
He had told the company that the agreement no longer existed. Mrs. Reed set the original on the desk beside his copies.
Clara called the lawyer. He listened quietly, then asked them to stay in the house until he arrived.
Outside, Daniel stood at the garden gate. The buyer’s car approached, and this time Clara went out to meet it herself.
