Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind Read Online Free PDF

before he passed? Didn’t he care about them? How did he think she was going to get along, raising the child by herself? It’s just not like him to be unprepared for a contingency.”
    “I tried, Julia,” he said. “I kept after him for years to get his affairs in order. I don’t mean specifically for the woman, although like most everybody I’d heard the stories. But all he had was that standard will that you and he made out, what, twenty years or so ago. Remember that? He came in wanting a will for himself and one for you, each leaving the other everything. Just your basic kind of will until, he told me, he could plan one out in detail.”
    I could feel my face turning white and my eyes getting bigger. “Do I remember it? Like it was yesterday! That was right after Papa died and left me twenty-five thousand dollars, my share from the sale of the home place. Sam,” I said, as a hot pain shot through me, “those wills were for his benefit! He wanted to make sure he got everything I had if I went before he did. That’s thetruth, isn’t it? He didn’t count on dying first, did he? And, Lord help me, I didn’t think twice about signing whatever he put in front of me.” The pain in my chest stopped the flow of angry words. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I know he didn’t intend for it all to come to me. He never trusted me with anything financial, so I don’t understand why he didn’t change his will later on.”
    “I don’t understand it either, Julia. When I stopped practicing law, that was one of the things I told Binkie to get on to. See if she’d have more luck in getting old W.L. to update his will.”
    “W.L.,” I said with a rueful smile. “He never did appreciate you calling him that.”
    “Too uptight for his own good. You know, it’s crossed my mind that one reason he kept putting off making another will was that he’d have to admit to this woman. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to tell me why he would include her and the child. That’s why I thought Binkie might be able to do it.”
    “Binkie’d never have had a chance with Wesley Lloyd,” I said, waving that consideration away. “He wouldn’t’ve confided in anybody who, in his opinion, was untried, much less a woman, no matter how capable. But, Sam, he wouldn’t have had to admit to anything if he’d made some provision for them outside of a will. You know, bought her a house and set up some kind of fund for the child. Why couldn’t he have done that?”
    “Julia,” Sam sighed, “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but here’s my opinion. I think W.L. just couldn’t turn it loose. He had to control it all, and that’s a failing of a lot of successful men. But,” he went on, “tell me this. Why’re you so worried about them? You aren’t feeling guilty about it all coming to you, are you? Or feeling sorry for that litte boy out there?”
    “Neither one!” I said, pushing back my chair and getting to my feet. “The idea! I’m not feeling guilty about the one nor sorry for the other. No, I’m just mad as thunder, because if he’dprovided for them outside of the will, I’d never have known about them. Since I never knew how much he had in the first place, I wouldn’t’ve missed what he did for them. I tell you, Sam, if he had to get involved with that woman, it seems the least he could’ve done was to’ve kept them out of my life. Now here I am stuck with that illegitimate, illegal, and…and unwanted child out there!”

C HAPTER F IVE
    I PACED BACK and forth, wringing my handkerchief until I calmed myself enough to sit back down. Sam put his hand over mine, but I was too exercised to be so easily comforted.
    “And here’s another thing, Sam,” I said, intent on learning as much as I could about the man I’d spent forty-some-odd years with. “Do you know anything about him planning to leave anything to the church?”
    Sam put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned back in his chair,