Chapter 4 - The Petition No One Told Me About
For a second, the only sound in the drawing room was Alma breathing softly against my shoulder.
Then Ryan took the document from Arthur’s hand.
His eyes moved across the page.
His face drained.
“I’ve never seen this,” he said.
I held out my hand.
Arthur gave it to me.
The petition was incomplete, but it was more than enough.
It described hypothetical circumstances in which Ryan might be “unable to exercise immediate parental judgment.” In such an event, temporary care authority over Alma would pass not to me as her mother—which was absurd enough—but to Beatrice Vance as “the more stable and culturally integrated family figure within the paternal line.”
I read that sentence twice.
Then I looked up.
“Culturally integrated?”
Beatrice crossed her arms. “It was only a draft.”
Chloe snapped, “That doesn’t mean anything!”
The attorney disagreed. “A draft like this means someone was considering legal action.”
“I was protecting my granddaughter,” Beatrice said. “Valeria is secretive. She hides things. None of us even knew she was military.”
I almost laughed at the logic.
“You mean I maintained private professional boundaries,” I said.
Amber leaned forward. “Why would a normal wife hide that she was a Colonel?”
My father answered before I did.
“Because her service record is not cocktail-party entertainment.”
Arthur took the document back and read further.
The form also included notes about my supposed “unpredictable schedule,” “foreign family influences,” and a line suggesting that my work had exposed Alma to “instability.”
Beatrice lifted her chin as though every word were reasonable.
“She travels. She disappears for days. She has men calling at strange hours. I asked questions any grandmother would ask.”
Ryan finally found his voice.
“She doesn’t disappear,” he said hoarsely. “She serves.”
Beatrice turned on him. “And what has that given you? A wife who treats your family like hostiles?”
I met Ryan’s eyes.
“Tell them,” I said.
His shoulders tightened.
“Tell them about the document you asked me to sign after Alma was born.”
Beatrice went still.
Arthur looked sharply at his son. “What document?”
Ryan rubbed one hand over his mouth. “Mom gave me something two weeks after Alma was born. She said it was for estate insurance purposes. A family-access authorization. She wanted Valeria to sign it.”
I waited.
Ryan swallowed. “It gave Mom unsupervised access to Alma. It also listed the estate nursery as an approved residence for overnight care.”
Arthur stared at Beatrice. “You tried to formalize control over their child?”
Beatrice’s voice sharpened. “I tried to ensure the baby had proper family structure.”
“The baby has parents,” Arthur said.
Ryan spoke again, and this time his voice broke. “When Valeria asked to read it first, Mom told me I was letting my wife disrespect our traditions.”
I remembered the argument clearly. Ryan had said it was “just paperwork.” I had refused to sign anything without time to review it. He sulked for two days, then dropped it.
Or pretended to.
The attorney reached for the petition. “Who prepared this?”
“No one,” Beatrice said too quickly.
The notary public, a stern woman in her sixties named Judith Miller, finally spoke.
“I have seen my professional seal copied before,” she said. “The impression mark in this margin resembles mine, but I did not witness any signature on this draft.”
Beatrice’s face changed.
Arthur heard it too. “Copied?”
Judith held out her hand. “May I?”
Arthur gave her the page.
She examined the embossed mark near the lower corner and shook her head.
“This is not a valid notarization,” she said. “Someone attempted to reproduce my seal.”
Ryan stepped back as if the floor had shifted under him.
Beatrice stood so suddenly that her chair struck the hardwood.
“I will not be interrogated in my own home by servants and strangers,” she snapped.
Ophelia looked at her sadly.
“This is exactly why you fired me,” she said. “Because there was more in those files than one ugly joke.”
Arthur’s gaze shifted.
“What more?”
May you like
Ophelia looked toward the locked hallway beyond the drawing room.
“In the blue ledgers,” she said, “and on the drive Mrs. Vance thought I never saw.”
