Chapter 6 - Eric learned what his mother had sent in his name
Robert showed Eric the emails two days after the luncheon.
Eric initially denied everything.
“I never wrote that.”
Robert slid a printout across the table.
The message was addressed to Sarah.
You need to accept that Lucas is doing better without these visits. Every time you return, he regresses.
Eric read it twice.
“I did not send this.”
“Your account did.”
“I’m telling you I didn’t.”
Robert believed him.
Another message.
Please stop sending letters to the estate. It confuses him.
Eric looked up.
“No.”
Then another.
If you really love him, let him build a life without constantly reopening the past.
Eric stood.
“Who wrote these?”
Robert did not answer immediately.
He did not need to.
Eric looked toward the hallway leading to Margaret’s office.
His face changed.
“No.”
Robert said quietly:
“The old login records are incomplete. But several were sent from the estate desktop.”
“My mother used that computer.”
“So did staff.”
Eric grabbed the papers.
“You’re accusing her based on a shared computer?”
“No.”
Robert placed Sarah’s original letters beside them.
“I’m accusing her of withholding these because William Cross personally handed some of them to her.”
Eric stared.
Then Robert gave him one more document.
A calendar entry from Sarah’s attorney.
Call from Margaret Hale. States Eric requests all Sarah contact routed through family office until further notice.
Eric’s face went pale.
“I never requested that.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked your lawyer from that year.”
Eric looked at him.
“The attorney has no record of you giving that instruction.”
Silence.
For the first time, Eric saw the machinery.
Not one giant forged legal document.
Small acts of authority.
A phone call.
A collected envelope.
An email.
A rescheduled visit.
A statement made confidently enough that professionals assumed the family had agreed internally.
Then Eric asked the question Robert had been waiting for.
“Why?”
Robert leaned back.
“You tell me.”
Eric thought of his mother’s hatred of Sarah.
Not open hatred at first.
Disapproval.
Sarah was too emotional.
Too independent.
Too unwilling to defer.
Then Eric remembered Margaret saying, years ago:
“Lucas needs one stable household, not a revolving door every time Sarah decides she’s ready to be a mother again.”
At the time, it sounded protective.
Now it sounded like doctrine.
Margaret had not simply wanted Sarah to recover.
She wanted the family to stop needing her.
May you like
Permanently.
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