Hale confirmed it the following morning when I sat across from him in his office — a quiet room lined with filing cabinets and the kind of orderly stillness that suggested he had delivered difficult news many times before and had learned to let the furniture absorb it.
“He filed his first challenge eight years ago,” Hale said, sliding a folder across the desk.
“Eleanor was still living independently at that point.
She retained me specifically to defend the trust against his claim.”
I opened the folder.
Legal correspondence, dense and formal.
Douglas Marsh’s name appeared on every page.
“What’s his argument?” I asked.
“That the trust was established under duress by his grandmother, who was in cognitive decline at the time.
That the beneficiary — you — cannot be verified with sufficient certainty.
And that as the only surviving Marsh heir, the assets should revert to him upon Eleanor’s death.” Hale paused.
