“Which firm?” she asked.
I told her.
She set down her cup.
“That’s the firm Mark founded with two partners before he died.”
I stared at her.
“Your husband?”
She nodded slowly.
“I didn’t know they had any connection to your father.”
“Neither did I.”
We looked at each other across the kitchen.
For the first time since I’d known her, Diane seemed genuinely unsettled.
“What did the attorney say?”
“Only that my father’s name appeared in some old records.”
Diane rubbed her forehead.
“Mark kept boxes of old project files in storage. After he died, I couldn’t bear to go through them. I gave the partners permission to archive everything.”
She paused.
“Ethan, there may be nothing to this. But I think I should tell you something before Friday.”
“What?”
She looked toward the reading room.
“Mark had a habit of keeping letters. Notes from clients, sketches from contractors, even small pieces of paper with ideas he wanted to revisit. He believed that if something mattered, it deserved to be preserved.”
