Jack stayed with his mom in the waiting room until she fell asleep, and then let Sarah take her to a hotel. He had things to do still, and people waited around him, as if expecting him to do things he didn't even know he had to do.
He went to the bathroom to wash his face and clean up the traces of smudged makeup around his eyes. When he looked at his face on the mirror, he could barely recognize himself.
'Now you look like a panda' his father had said. Jack could almost hear his voice in his head.
He cried again.
Someone entered the bathroom. A short, boney man in an ill fitting, black suit. He was followed by one of his dad's bodyguards. Jack wiped the water and the tears off his face.
"What?" he growled.
The man bowed.
"Let me express my most heartfelt sympathies for your loss, Mr. Spicer," said the man in mandarin, with a deep bow. "My name is Yong Wu, and your late father charged me with the task of guiding you through the process of dealing with the minutiae involved with his death."
"W-wha-…He…What, are you telling me he knew he was going to die?" asked Jack hysterically.
"Regardless of the fact that death is an inevitability for all of us," said Yong, taking a small envelope from his inner pocket and extending it towards Jack. "Your father had had another stroke last year, and another one just a few months ago. It was this last stroke that finally convinced him to start putting his affairs in order."
"He had a stroke? Two of them?" asked Jack, refusing to believe it. He knew that his father kept a lot of things private, but he had always thought it would be business stuff. Not things like this. "Fuck, no. Did my mom know?" he took the envelope from Yong's, and saw that his own hands were trembling.
"No. He kept his health issues only between a few select people. His doctor, the lawyer who arranged his will, and me. Given the way your family is always in the center of media attention, it was an imperative for him to keep everything as quiet as possible."
Jack opened the letter. It was handwritten, with the strong, even letters that his father always had.
"Dear Jacob,
If you are reading this, then I am dead. There is a lot to that I wish to tell you, and I am sure you must be shaken by the events. Still, I urge you to keep calm, because you and your mother are about to be surrounded by not only the media, but also those who would like to profit from my death.
I know that your first instinct will be to stay with your mother and protect her, but trust me when I tell you that she is strong enough. You do not have to take care of her beyond how you have always taken care of her during her bad times.
I have arranged everything for the both of you, and taken as many decisions as possible about what I would like to happen, but despite that, there are still things that you have to do on your own, and things that she has to do herself. If you see that your mother is having a difficult time, step in to guide her, but other than that, just be there for her.
Following is a list of things that have to be done in chronological order. Be as meticulous as you usually are in making sure that these are done to the letter, and respecting every one of my instructions. Some of it may not make sense to you right now. But now more than ever I need you to trust me."
After that there were two pages of itemized things to do. Get death certificate. Retrieve my belongings from the hospital. Sign hospital bill.
Jack looked at every single item, looking for anywhere that his father had remembered to tell him that he loved him.
There was nothing.