Chapter 9 - ULRIC’S HANDWRITTEN PAGE
Ulric produced a photograph.
Yellow legal pad.
Tavian’s handwriting.
Date:
Six weeks before death.
It said:
Ulric has been here every day. Rhydian cannot understand what that means from airports and phone calls.
Then:
Maybe I was too hard on U.
My stomach tightened.
Then:
Esmond needs continuity.
Ulric’s lawyer argued:
Tavian reconsidered.
Maybe intended to change the nomination.
No new signed nomination had been found.
But a court can consider later intent in assessing weight.
Not automatically dispositive.
Then handwriting.
Harriet thought it looked real.
I did too.
Ulric said he found the page on Tavian’s bedside table.
Why not disclose earlier?
“I thought the signed paperwork was missing.”
That answer made little sense.
Still possible.
Then Harriet remembered a journal.
Tavian kept a spiral notebook during treatment.
Not estate planning.
Medication times.
Questions.
Thoughts.
The legal-pad page might have been torn from it.
Probate inventory contained the notebook.
We requested the surrounding pages.
No one altered it.
Professional executor held it.
The entry before:
Ulric drove me to infusion. Stayed five hours. I’m an ass for not thanking him enough.
Then the yellow-page wording copied into notebook:
Maybe I was too hard on U.
Then next line:
Doesn’t change guardian choice.
My whole body loosened.
Next:
Gratitude and custody are not the same decision.
There.
Then:
R should move home if he gets Esmond. Boy needs his school.
That one hurt after my school mistake.
Dad—Tavian—had anticipated exactly what I had failed.
Then another:
Need tell Harriet no change.
Harriet’s call log two days later:
Client confirms guardian nomination remains unchanged.
That was authentication plus intent.
May you like
Tomorrow the judge would rule on whether the nomination carried full evidentiary weight.
And whether Ulric’s temporary-placement claim had any future after the bat.
