Chapter 6 - SOPHIE’S MEMORY
Sophie returned to the estate only once before trial preparations began.
Police needed her to identify where she stood when she saw Bridget use the bottle.
Her mother came with her.
Alma held one hand.
A child specialist held the other.
I watched from the library doorway and felt ashamed that a four-year-old had been braver in my house than I had.
She pointed to the kitchen island.
“Aunt Bridget was there.”
“Where were you?”
“By the cookies.”
“What happened?”
“She took the little bottle from her skirt.”
“What did she do?”
“Drops.”
“How many?”
Sophie shrugged.
Nobody pushed her.
“Then what?”
“She put it in Mr. Miles’s juice.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said he was having a hard day.”
The investigator asked whether Sophie had seen it before.
“In milk.”
“Anything else?”
“Soup once.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Four-year-old memory had limits.
That made the parts she repeated consistently more important.
Afterward, Sophie came into the library.
My wheelchair frightened her now.
Not because of me.
Because she associated it with Bridget’s slap.
I held out my hand.
She did not take it.
That was fine.
“Thank you for telling the truth.”
“Is Aunt Bridget mad?”
“Probably.”
“Will she hit me?”
“No one is allowing her near you.”
“Promise?”
I hesitated.
Adults promised impossibility too easily.
“I promise we are taking serious steps to keep you safe.”
She considered that.
Then she touched the wheel of my chair.
“Can you walk?”
“Not yet.”
“Did the juice make you not walk?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
Children could tolerate uncertainty if adults stopped dressing guesses as facts.
The estate search uncovered a concealed cabinet behind the laundry-room shelving.
Inside were copies of my medical summaries, company voting documents, and photographs of me during therapy.
One photograph showed me standing between parallel bars five months after the crash.
Bridget had written on the back:
Still too functional for incapacity.
That phrase changed everything.
James read it twice.
“Incapacity for what?”
Sterling Mobility’s bylaws contained an emergency governance clause.
If I remained medically incapable of acting for twelve consecutive months, temporary voting control of my founder shares would transfer to a stewardship council.
Laura had served as first successor.
After her death, the next successor named in an older amendment was not Bridget.
It was an independent bank.
But a later amendment had changed the structure.
The later amendment carried my signature.
Again.
Signed while I was recovering.
The new council included Bridget, Charles Vane, and two directors aligned with them.
If my incapacity reached twelve months, they would control enough votes to approve a sale of Sterling Mobility’s rehabilitation technology division.
A buyer had already expressed interest.
Vane Health Partners.
Bridget’s family company.
The twelve-month deadline was twenty-six days away.
We finally had a plausible motive.
Not proof of what was in the juice.
But a reason someone needed me to remain too weak to be judged capable.
Then the independent bank called James.
Laura had challenged the amendment before her death.
May you like
She filed an objection three days before the crash.
The crash that killed her and injured me had happened on the way to that meeting.
