Morning all. I hope you are having a fabulous week. I am so relieved to have the website done and out. You have no idea. I also had a blast with the covers. But it is a relief to get back to my regular writing. For now though, there is the morning prompt. So timers set and off we go.
Oh this could be fun. An old man who was always polite finally telling everyone what he thought of them, expected inheritance and an estranged albeit married in member of the family. So much to work with. Especially if if turns out John’s death was less than natural. Thee might be an outline in the near future.
Thursday, April 24th: A hush fell over the room.
A hush fell over the room. All heads swiveled in her direction. Emma felt their attention., cold practically hear the questions in the silence. She had been gone for nearly thirty years. Why had she returned.
Emma found her lips twitching with a smile and ruthlessly swallowed back the amusement to keep her face blank.
They knew why she was here of course. It was the same reason they were all here. She received a letter.
‘Letter,’ she thought wryly as she slid into one of the few empty seats. She pretended not to see the older woman shift slightly away while giving her the side eye. It was quite a performance. She hadn’t technically moved from her seat yet everything about her shied away. She also didn’t turn her head in Emma’s direction, yet Emma could see her watching out of the corners of her eyes.
Idly Emma wondered what they expected her to do.
The letter, at least the one she received was more summons than anything else. It announced Theadore’s death of course. It then requested her presence at the reading of the will and offered several veiled threats of what might happen should she not attend.
A part of Emma wanted to stay away, just to see what sorts of things Theodore set up. She was so outside of his world that she doubted he could actually do her harm. By Theodore was nothing if not clever and a part of her still suspected that even dead he could still reach out and affect her life.
Besides, she was curious.
As the near complete silence shifted into soft whispers, Emma found she wished she had stayed away. She didn’t belong here. She hadn’t belonged here even when she lived her. It was why she left.
‘I didn’t belong when I married John,’ Emma found herself thinking. After he died she stayed with his family for a while out of a sense of responsibility. They killed that and she finally had to escape. Theodore, undisputed head of the Wallace Clan understood that and let her go. Perhaps that was why she came back.
Not much seemed to have changed in the time she was gone. There were older faces of course, hers was showing a few lines as well even if she did make sure the grays were well dyed.
The clicks remained the same. It was as though each group aged together.
Emma allowed her gaze to sweep the room. There was no one here she missed.
The room grew silent again. It wasn’t the shocked variety that heralded her arrival but the waiting, anticipatory kind. She turned to the front of the room and saw the family lawyer had arrived and taken his place at the front table. Behind him a television on a stand was rolled in.
‘Oh no,’ Emma thought. She saw a few others wince at the sight of it as well. Theodore had always threatened to tell all of them what he thought when he reached the point of no return. As he was dead, cremated, scattered and his will finally made it through probate, Emma was certain this was as beyond the point as he could get.
‘At least I know why he summoned me here.’
There was relief in that. And Emma had to admit, a slight amount of curiosity. Theodore had always been pleasant and respectful towards her but she could never really tell what he hid behind those manners. Now she supposed she would find out. She saw others reach more or less the same conclusion. They looked more resigned than curious.
Ten til Midnight 