Rent

I gave Catherine notice that we were terminating the lease. We hugged and cried together that morning. We packed our stuff and moved out at the end of the month. Two nights before, the five of us spent the night together for the last time. Two days later, I met with Catherine for the last time. I gave her the keys to the apartment and she gave me a stack of uncashed rent checks.

"These are yours," I said. "You should keep them and cash them."

"I don't need the money," she said and you and the others have paid the rent for this old lady in ways that exceed the value of any money involved."

I kept the checks and we hugged for the last time. "I love you," she whispered in my ear as we hugged.

The four of us moved into separate, one bedroom apartments in the same upscale high rise apartment building in another city near our jobs and began a new schedule.

Four months later, I got a call from a lawyer. She identified herself and, after several questions to confirm that I was indeed Lori Hardy, she told me that Catherine Jean Wordsly had passed away peacefully in her sleep three days earlier. I cried when I heard the words.

When I recovered somewhat she asked, "Did you know her?"

"Yes," I knew her well," I related. "We lived in her apartment house for several years."

"Mrs. Wordsly was a widow and she didn't have any children," the lawyer explained. "In addition she didn't have any other living relatives. In other words, she was completely alone."

"Why do I need to know that?" I asked.

"Three months ago," continued the lawyer, "she came into my office and rewrote her will. She revoked any and all previous wills and we created a simple new will for her."

"Was that supposed to answer my question?" I asked.

"She specified four individuals to share her estate equally," the lawyer said.

I was beginning to see where she was heading.

"Do you know Casey Hardy, Josh Curtis and Ivy Curtis?" she asked.

"I do," I confirmed.

"Mrs. Wordsly has left her entire estate to you, Casey, Josh and Ivy equally and she had named you as the sole executor of her estate."

I was glad I was already sitting down.

"I don't think it will amount to much," opined the lawyer. She had a modest checking account and after you sell what you can, including the apartment house, it will probably amount to several hundred thousand dollars. Split four ways, it will be a nice bonus but probably not life changing."

She offered to help me for a modest hourly fee and we agreed to meet the following week in her office near the university and we should bring documentation of our identities. She suggested birth certificates, driver licenses and passports.

I relayed the news of Catherine's death to the rest of the group. There were tears all around including Josh and Casey.

We made arrangements to travel back to the university area on Tuesday. We arranged for a day off from our employers and we drove past Catherine's apartment house on the way to the lawyer's office. The doors and windows were closed and the lights were out. There were tears in my eyes as we drove by.

We met Janice Montfort, Esquire in her office at one pm. After collecting and copying our identity documentation, she passed out copies of the will and we reviewed it with her. It was short, it didn't take long and it confirmed everything she had told me over the phone the previous week.

She gave me several copies of Catherine's death certificate, a statement of my appointment as Catherine's executor and a signed order giving me power of attorney over Catherine's funds and belongings. She told me that I might need any or all of them to settle with the bank and sell the apartment house. Finally, she gave me a small box. "This box contains a few of Catherine's belongings that we think were important to her and her checkbook that you'll need to pay her final expenses until you get control of her funds as her executor.

I opened the box gingerly. Inside was a bible, the keys to the apartment house and two other items. I picked up the keys and placed them on the desk in front of me. I then lifted a small articulated jester like doll from the box. My eyes filled with tears.

"Catherine died peacefully in her sleep. They found her the next morning when one of her tenants knocked on her door and she didn't respond. She was lying in her bed. The bible was on her chest and she was holding the other items in her hands," explained the attorney. "We don't know why she was holding them as she died. Can you provide any insight that would explain it?"

I held up the small doll. "Catherine loved this doll," I explained. "Her husband gave it to her on their honeymoon in Italy."

"Catherine was married?" questioned Mrs. Montfort. "I found no record of a marriage or a husband. Do you know where he is?"

"It was a long time ago," I revealed. "He died in Viet Nam two weeks after the wedding. She never remarried and she told me this was her most precious possession."

"And the tea cup?" the attorney asked.

I took the cup out of the box. "We gave this to her a couple of years ago on her birthday," I explained. "She was surprised and quite emotional over it. She told us that she'd cherish it for the rest of her life."

"She was an unusual person," commented Mrs. Montfort.

Next I removed the bible from the box. "Catherine didn't attend church but she was religious. She kept this bible on her night table beside her bed and read from it most nights."

We left after I used Catherine's check book to give her a check for her services to date.

Later in the day, back in our apartment, the four of us reviewed what we knew and how to handle it. Catherine's checking account showed a balance of just over seven thousand dollars. We estimated the value of her belongings and the proceeds from the sale of the apartment house. It came to almost six hundred thousand dollars. The attorney was correct. After expenses and split four ways, it wasn't a life changing amount. Everyone agreed that, as the executor, to let me handle it.

After Casey and Ivy left, I picked up Catherine's bible. The warmth of it in my hands reminded me of Catherine's warmth and tears formed in my eyes again. The bible had a number of pages marked with stick on labels. I looked at each one but unable to identify which sections of each page she thought important enough to remember.

While I was paging through her bible, a key fell out into my lap. Surprised, I picked it up. It was an unusual shape for a key. It was flat with squared teeth and a number stamped on the head. I showed it to Josh and he suggested it was the key to a bank safe deposit box. But which bank? There was no way to know.

During lunch the next day, I called the bank that provided Catherine's checking account. I need to visit them to change the ownership of her account to an Estate account with me as executor. I couldn't do it over the phone or by mail. I inquired about the possibility of a safe deposit box in Catherine's name but the individual I spoke with told me she couldn't reveal that information except in person. I made and appointment for late Friday morning and took another day off to go.

At the bank Friday morning, I presented copies of the paperwork the attorney gave me and thirty minutes later I had a new checking account for the Estate of Catherine Wordsly with me as executor and a book of checks I could use. Finally, I presented the safe deposit key and asked it Catherine had maintained a box at the bank.

The clerk took the key and returned ten minutes later with the news that Catherine did have a safe deposit box at the bank and paperwork that transferred ownership to me as executor. I signed the paperwork and asked to see the box.

The clerk took me to another employee who review the paperwork, took another key from her desk drawer and led me into the vault where the safe deposit boxes were. She put her key into a lock on one of the boxes and indicated that I should put my key in a second lock. I was surprised to notice that Catherine's box wasn't one of the small ones. It wasn't the largest but still larger than I expected.

The clerk carried the inside box to a small private room and left me alone to open it. I opened the box slowly. I didn't know what to expect but the size of the box was intimidating. The box was full of documents. I removed each item from the box and placed them on the table.

When I was finished, I had seven savings account passbooks, account statements from a brokerage firm, several dozen stock certificates, even more bonds of various denominations and three envelopes full of government savings bonds. I was unprepared to take anything but I knew I had to take everything with me and itemize them in order to properly value Catherine's estate.

I pressed the call button and when the clerk returned, I asked for something I could use to carry the contents. She left and returned with a small, plastic tote bag with the bank's name emblazoned on the sides. She left again and I barely managed to stuff most of the documents into the tote bag. The rest went into my purse.

I called for the clerk again and we returned the empty box to its place in the vault and I left for home. My head was full of "what ifs" on the drive. At my apartment Friday afternoon, I unloaded the tote and my purse onto the kitchen table. I spent the next twenty minutes listing each item in a spread sheet and including its value.

The savings account passbooks and brokerage account were easy but evaluating the stock certificates, bonds and savings bonds were more difficult. I spent the next two hours looking up each item on the internet, establishing the current market value of the stocks and the value of the bonds with accrued interest.

When I was done, I had an extensive list of each item with its purchase date, age, purchase price, interest to date if appropriate and current value. I added it all up and almost fell off my chair. The total was just under seven million dollars. If I added our previous estimate of Catherine's belongs and the apartment house, it totaled closer to eight million dollars.

Overwhelmed, I called Josh, Casey and Ivy at work and told them that I had visited Catherine's bank and we needed to meet that evening. I didn't tell them the estimated value of what I had found. Then I called Janice Montfort, the attorney, and asked for her advice, also without details about the total value of the assets. She advised me to open a brokerage account with a money market account I could write checks on in the name of the estate and let an experienced professional sort it all out.

That evening, I gave each of my partner heirs a copy of the spreadsheet I had prepared.

"You're fuckin' kidding me," exclaimed Casey when he noticed the bottom number.

The others were similarly impressed. They were all more than happy to let me handle it.

I spent the weekend researching investment firms with offices near us. I evaluated the services they offered and eliminated those with low cost trading incentives and not serious about actually managing a multimillion dollar estate. In the end, I chose a fiduciary advisor.

Waiting until Monday to call them was torture. I called in sick Monday morning and make an appointment with an advisor in the local office for ten am. I carried everything, including my authorization paperwork in an old briefcase to the advisor.

We sat together in his office while I explained the situation with him. We discussed the options available including fees and I opened an account in the name of Catherine's estate. Then I gave him a copy of my spreadsheet accounting. His immediate response, after his astonishment, was that what I was requesting was significantly larger than his level of responsibility and he needed to refer my account to a higher authority. I informed him that I wanted to handle the account locally and whoever was assigned to manage it would have to come to me. I would not travel to them.

After a couple of phone calls, he gave me the name and contact information of who would be managing the account and assurance that meeting me in the local office or at home would not be a problem. Then he studiously and very carefully began to enter each item, except the savings accounts that I would have to deal with each bank and transfer the funds, into the system.

In the process, he discovered that the stocks Catherine had invested in, were all solid dividend paying companies that had been held with reinvested dividends. It would take several days for the investment advisor to assess the cumulative size and value of each one and the sum of the investments would be considerably increased in the process.

It took another two weeks to get all of Catherine's assets organized, valued and in one place. I took so much time off that my manager was concerned about my absences and warned me that my employment may be a risk. I saved him the effort and, given the circumstances, I quit.

With Ivy's help, we sold everything we could on Ebay or Facebook marketplace. The rest was donated to Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity. Her clothes went to a women's shelter and her remaining items to an antique shop after Ivy and I went through her jewelry and selected items we wanted to keep. The apartment house sold in two days for slightly more than we asked for it.

We had another meeting about the estate. I explained what I had done and handed out revised statements of net worth prepared by the investment manager. The total now stood at just over ten million dollars.

I then suggested that we needed to decide how we wanted to proceed. I offered a number of options. We could leave the estate open and draw regular payments from it or we could distribute the funds to each of us immediately. Both choices appealed to someone. Casey insisted it was my decision as the executor.

"Catherine left her estate to all of us equally. I don't want to make unilateral decisions. I think we should all be involved in how the estate is handled. That's what I think Catherine wanted," I explained.

"Do you have a suggestion?" Casey asked.

"I would distribute the estate as soon as possible. That allows each of us to make independent investment decisions rather than having to accept decisions that we may not feel comfortable with," I told him.

"Then that's what we should do," Casey stated with certainty.

The others quickly agreed.

"Okay," I said. "Here are the options. I can convert everything to cash and write distribution checks. That means we can make our own decisions. However, most of the assets, stock and bonds for example, lose their initial basis and the estate may have to pay capital gains taxes. If, on the other hand, I distribute the assets in their original form, the basis remains with the asset. It means we inherit stocks with older, long term costs without taxes and we each owe capital gains taxes when, and if, we sell them. It also means the dividends continue to accrue and the number of shares continues to increase."

"I've been thinking about this. What's your advice?" asked Casey.

"I'd transfer the assets. I can liquidate a portion of the assets and distribute cash if anyone wants to do that with their share," I explained. "I will have to distribute the cash already in the account."

"Done then," said Casey. "Distribute the assets."

"If we all agree, then each of you has to open an investment account to receive the property. It would be easier if the accounts were with the same investment firm that's managing the estate's account. I'll write checks to each of you from the current cash and when the sale of the apartments closes, I'll distribute final checks," I said. "As an aside, I think I should write a refund check to our parents for all the support they provided to us while in school."

"Good idea," agreed Josh. "How much?"

"I did a quick estimate," I told them. "It came to just over fifty thousand. I thought it should be sixty grand in case I forgot something. Also, Janice Montfort has been a big help and I thought I send her an extra ten thousand dollar bonus. Agree?"

Nobody even twitched.

Everything was complete within sixty days. Within three months, Josh and I bought a four thousand square foot house with a pool on two acres next to a similar house bought by Casey and Ivy.

Our parents had to wonder where the money was coming from since we agreed not to tell them about the inheritance. I assume that they assumed that our jobs paid well and we had significant mortgages.

Since our parents were retired and we worked, the winter holiday parties moved to our new homes including the New Year's Eve traditions.

In the spring, Ivy quit her job and we both became homemakers, insuring that evening meals were prepared and the sheets on the beds fresh for the weekends.

Recently, Ivy has expressed a desire to have children. I signed up as well and the guys agreed. We went off birth control and the inter family sex has become very careful. It didn't take long. I'm pregnant with a girl and Ivy with twin boys.

I wonder how life will develop with our children. I guess we'll just have to wait.