They finished reading the will the next day. It was just as Jack's father had written down. Everything was to be divided evenly between his mom and Jack, and his mom had nothing to say about it, agreeing to everything with dispassionate weariness.
She never mentioned the contents of the letter though. Jack had picked it up after she left, but hadn't dared to read it.
The oldest lawyer presented to them copies of the will, which showed everything that was under Lionel Spicer's name. Cars (all of them would go to Jack), properties (most would go to his mom, but Jack owned the family house where he had been living, an apartment in London, and another in Hong Kong that had belonged to his grandfather and that he was urged to never sell). The weary minutiae of it all grated on his nerves. He felt like he was digging the remains of his father, and was expected to profit from it.
"Do you agree with everything?" asked the lawyer to Jack's mom.
She nodded, pushing her dark glasses up. "We had gone through this…before," she said, and shrugged. "It's the same agreement that we had settled for our div-… Whatever. Where do I sign?"
"Actually Miranda," said a female lawyer, one of his mom's lawyers. "You had decided to keep running the company together, even after the divorce. Jacob was about to go to university, was he not?"
Jack sighed, and took out his father's list, crossing off the reading of the will, and showing it to his mom.
"Make sure your mom…Oh, Lionel," said his mother as she read the crossed off items. "He knew he would piss me off with his stupid letter. Well, that was to be expected. We will discuss the management later. We need more time."
Jack nodded. He needed all the time. No way was he going to run the damn company, right?
But he couldn't read his mother's expression.