Chapter 16 - The Children's Share
The courtroom on Tuesday was smaller than Nathan expected. No gallery crowded the benches. No one asked Avery to come through the doors and prove what adults had done with her money.
Hannah had explained the day's limits twice. The court would consider temporary administration of the disputed trust voting interest. The fuller hearing remained set for October 20. The order pausing the River Street sale still stood. Today would not decide every allegation or remake the whole company.
Knowing that did not stop Nathan from feeling as though he were surrendering something irretrievable.
Victor sat across the room, immaculate in a gray suit. When Nathan glanced toward him, his uncle gave the tiny, familiar nod that had once meant he would handle everything.
Nathan looked away.
Ruth Shaw sat behind Hannah with the trust instrument open on her lap. Claire and Nathan had named her as an alternate because she was experienced and independent. Nathan had met her only twice. That absence now seemed like part of the problem: the person chosen to protect their children had become almost a stranger, while the man controlling the information had become indispensable.
Victor's attorney called the requested appointment unnecessary.
“Mr. Mercer disputes the characterization of the transaction. There is already a sale restraint. The petitioners are attempting to transfer business control before the merits are heard.”
Hannah stood. “The requested authority is limited to the thirty percent held for the children and the related records necessary to evaluate those votes. Neither beneficiary is represented by a parent's personal wish to control the company.”
She placed the ownership schedule, the missing appraisal correspondence, and the disputed approval documents into the proper sequence. She did not mention the wedding photographs. She did not turn the court into another room where Avery's pain bought adult credibility.
The judge asked Nathan whether he understood that a special fiduciary might disagree with him.
“Yes.”
“Not merely with your uncle.”
“I understand.”
“Would you agree to refrain from directing the trust's vote while the appointment is in effect?”
He swallowed. The company had carried his family name all his life. His father had brought him there as a boy; Victor had taught him its machines after his father's death. Giving someone else a consequential vote felt, in a stubborn corner of his mind, like letting a stranger into his children's bedroom.
Then he remembered who had already been allowed in.
“Yes,” he said. “I signed without reviewing enough. My children's interest needs someone who can evaluate this independently of me, too.”
Victor moved in his chair.
The judge questioned Ruth about possible conflicts, compensation, and the scope she could undertake on short notice. She answered without promising loyalty to either side. She would examine the governing documents, the company information, and the proposed transaction. She would report within the court's directions. If authority proved insufficient, she would seek clarification instead of improvising it.
Nathan found himself relieved by the unglamorous precision of her answers.
The resulting order appointed Ruth as limited special fiduciary for the disputed thirty percent and its consequential votes while the proceedings continued. Nathan and Victor were restricted from exercising that authority contrary to the order. Record access and reporting obligations were specified. Their final status as trustees would be addressed later.
The judge looked from one man to the other.
“These are children's assets,” she said. “Conduct yourselves accordingly.”
Outside the courtroom, Victor caught Nathan before the elevator.
“You handed a stranger the deciding vote.”
“The court appointed someone Claire and I selected.”
“Claire wasn't running a manufacturing company.”
“Neither were our children.”
Victor's face hardened. “You think independence means wisdom. Wait until she costs you something.”
Hannah stepped beside Nathan. “Any discussion of the appointment should go through counsel.”
Victor looked at her, then at the closed courtroom door, and walked away.
In the lobby, Ruth asked Nathan for a secure contact at the company and a copy of the meeting notice sent on October 7.
“The October 22 meeting,” Nathan said. “Removing Victor as a director.”
“Considering that resolution,” she corrected.
“Will you support it?”
“I haven't finished my review.”
He felt the old impulse to persuade her rise in him. The wedding. Avery's sleeve. Sabrina's face. Facts with the force of a blade, ready to be carried into any argument he needed to win.
He let the impulse pass.
“June can supply the operational records,” he said. “And Nora can explain the accounting.”
“Good. I also want to understand what replacing him requires. The children's interest includes a functioning company.”
Ruth put the meeting notice into her folder, separate from the court order. “If I need clarification, I'll ask your counsel and his. Please don't send me private arguments by text.”
“I wasn't going to.”
Her expression remained courteous. Nathan heard himself and reconsidered. He had been about to offer his uncle's latest threat as one more reason she should agree with him.
“I might have,” he admitted.
“Then now you know the boundary.”
She shook his hand before leaving. It was a businesslike gesture, and the lack of intimacy steadied him.
When he returned to Grace's house, Avery was arranging stickers on a paper crown. Milo sat on the carpet, repeatedly placing a wooden block inside an empty cereal box.
“Did you go to work?” Avery asked.
“To a meeting.”
“Are you going back?”
“I'm staying for dinner.”
She examined him, then pushed a sticker across the table. It showed a green frog wearing boots.
“That one's yours.”
He put it on his shirt without making a ceremony of it. Grace brought plates, and for twenty minutes his phone remained in another room.
When he checked it afterward, Hannah had forwarded a newly served demand from a vendor represented by Victor's business attorney. It asserted unpaid company obligations and warned of collection action if payment was delayed.
May you like
Attached were service invoices Nora had already marked as disputed.
The land could not be sold. So Victor had found another way to insist the company needed money urgently.
