Wreathed Read Online Free PDF

death and dying, but it pervades a lot of what I do. My job is to make sure that my clients are prepared for their inevitable deaths, or at least as prepared as they can be. My goal is for the transfer of wealth and property from one generation to the next to be as pain-free as possible. Part of “pain-free” involves “tax-free,” to the extent taxes can be avoided. This irritates my mother no end, which makes it one of the other few perks of my job.
    I can’t do anything to stop death. What I can do is help package it—wrap it in legal language and forms, so my client can put the reality of death up on a top shelf and leave it there until the time comes. I tell myself I’m here to help the living, not bury the dead. It helps me put distance between what I do and what is waiting for all of us at the end of our lives.
    I didn’t know what had happened to Sheldon Berkman, Air Force veteran, retired aviation machinist, and native son of the Garden State. All I knew was he was dead and I wasn’t and (after another swig or two of antifreeze cocktail) I was happy about that. I figured if he were in a closed casket and his surviving relatives weren’t the type to buttonhole total strangers and ask them for tax advice at a funeral, we would get along just fine.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    I slept very well that night, and didn’t have one nightmare about dead bodies coming to life and climbing out of their coffins and chasing me down the street. I know, intellectually, that dead bodies can’t do anything to harm anyone, but I packed a silver cross in my suitcase to wear to the funeral anyway, because there’s no reason not to be prepared. I had no evidence one way or another that silver crosses worked to stop the reanimated corpses of aviation mechanics, but it just might work and you never know. I got everything else I thought I needed into the suitcase and bumped it down the stairs and into the modest trunk of my Audi. I wanted to be able to get down to Cape May early enough to get dinner and a couple of drinks and prepare for the ordeal that Friday promised to be.
    I had a five-minute commute, which enabled me to coordinate the demands of a high-powered legal practice with my incipient drinking problem. Admittedly, sometimes it’s a fifteen-minute commute, depending on how long the line is at Starbucks on any given morning. But I never had any problems with getting in early and staying late and racking up enough billable hours to do my share to help keep the firm afloat. I had a headache, and maybe was dehydrated, but enough coffee would take care of both of those things.
    I was about halfway through my memo—a truly fascinating bit of legal arcana involving a creative attempt to undermine a prenuptial agreement—when Tim Curlin stuck his head in my door. “I need to see you for a moment, Wendy,” he said. “In my office.”
    “Of course,” I said, because that is what you say to the senior partner of your firm when you are a lowly associate trying to make partner, and he is in charge of compensation and bonuses. I grabbed a legal pad and a pen and followed him to his office.
    Curlin was one of those bald guys with a strong build and a quiet voice. Like all the partners, he had one of the window offices, with a panoramic view of the Watchung Mountains outside the city. His office was decorated with baseball paraphernalia, none of which meant anything to me. “Please have a seat,” he said. “If you don’t mind, close the door behind you.”
    I did mind, but didn’t say so. Curlin was acting very polite and solicitous, which is not the way that he treated associates. It was, however, the way he treated attorneys who were on the other side of an important negotiation. That was not an encouraging thought. I tried to hold my legal pad in an assertive way.
    “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Coffee?”
    “I’m fine, sir. What did you need me for?”
    “Ms. Jarrett, I shouldn’t have to explain to you