Chapter 4 - The Questions My Granddaughter Had Been Asking About MeMy executive assistant, Julia Kim, cried when I questioned her.
That alarmed me before she said anything.
“Mrs. Vance, I thought she was worried about you.”
“What did Delilah ask?”
Julia opened an email folder.
Nine months earlier:
Has Grandma been repeating herself lately?
Then:
Does she forget meetings?
Then:
Please keep me updated if she becomes confused after long days. She won’t admit when she’s exhausted.
Taken individually, they sounded caring.
Delilah was my granddaughter.
I was approaching seventy.
People worry.
Then the questions became stranger.
Has Henrietta signed anything twice?
Any incidents where she forgot author names?
Does Samuel ever drive her because she seems disoriented?
Please note dates. It may matter for her doctors.
Julia had documented three incidents.
One was me asking twice whether an author meeting had been moved.
It had been.
The second was forgetting where I placed my reading glasses.
I owned six pairs because I forgot where I put my reading glasses approximately every afternoon.
The third was leaving a board dinner early due to a migraine.
Delilah’s packet transformed those mundane events into evidence of deterioration.
My driver, Samuel, had also been questioned.
“She asked whether you ever forgot where you were going.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you occasionally ask which restaurant we’re going to because you answer emails in the back seat like a maniac.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Then he became serious.
“She asked if I’d sign something.”
My amusement vanished.
“What?”
“A statement saying I’d noticed changes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She stopped asking me questions.”
Another employee, my longtime house manager, had received similar requests.
So had my personal physician.
That one bothered me most.
Dr. Susan Adler showed me an email Delilah sent four months earlier.
I’m worried Grandma is masking cognitive problems because she fears losing the company. Can I provide observations confidentially?
Dr. Adler refused to discuss my health without authorization.
Delilah responded:
Of course. I just want her safe.
Concern again.
Always concern.
Walter leaned back in his chair after reading the messages.
“She was collecting lay observations that could later be framed medically.”
“Can someone just declare me incompetent because I lose glasses?”
“No.”
“Can my board?”
“Corporate bylaws may address incapacity, but there are procedures. We need to review exactly what Delilah thinks she can trigger.”
That afternoon, Caroline found the relevant clause.
If the CEO became medically unable to perform duties, the board could appoint an interim officer.
Separately, my voting trust contained a provision governing what happened to my Class A voting shares during certified incapacity.
That provision was the real target.
Because if I could no longer serve as trustee, voting authority would pass temporarily to the successor trustee named in the instrument.
I asked Walter:
“Who is the successor?”
He smiled for the first time all day.
“You already know.”
I did.
Walter Greene.
Not Delilah.
I had amended the trust three years earlier.
Delilah apparently did not know.
The old version named my daughter Rebecca first.
After Rebecca died, an even older administrative schedule had once listed Delilah at age thirty as secondary successor.
That language had been replaced.
If Delilah was using the old documents, she might believe declaring me incapacitated would place my controlling shares directly into her hands.
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Suddenly twenty-three birthday guests felt less like an audience.
They felt like witnesses.
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