Lily shook her head. "You didn't cry at all. Not once." He almost smiled. "Every baby cries.
You just looked around the church like you were deciding whether the whole arrangement met your standards." He looked back at Martha. "I'll testify." He paused. "I should have.
There were things I noticed over the years. Things I told myself had explanations." His voice was very quiet. "I should have asked more questions." "Yes."
Martha said, not cruelly, just honestly. "You should have. But you're asking now." Sam drove them back to the cabin in the late afternoon, the low winter sun turning everything golden and long shadowed. Lily fell asleep between them on the wagon bench, her head against Martha's arm, her breathing slow and even and untroubled in the way of a child who has decided, provisionally, that today was not a day that required vigilance.
They were halfway home when Martha said, "Sam?" "Yeah?" "I need to tell you something I should have told you yesterday." She was looking at the road ahead, her voice measured. "There's more to the estate than Wade told Calhoun.
Harold owned a land grant, 200 acres east of town, timber rights included. It's worth considerably more than the house and the home property combined. A pause. Harold's will, as written, leaves the land grant to his legitimate heirs. Lily is his legitimate heir.
Wade is not. He's Harold's son from a common law arrangement before the marriage, never legally formalized. Her jaw tightened. Lily stands to inherit the most valuable thing Harold ever owned. Wade knows this.
Thomas Garrett needs to know this. Sam absorbed that. That's why he wants guardianship of Lily specifically. If he controls Lily until she's 18, he controls the land grant. He can log the timber, lease the grazing rights, extract everything of value.
And by the time Lily comes of age, there'll be nothing left worth claiming. Her voice was controlled, but something underneath it was not. He's not taking my daughter out of cruelty. He's taking her out of arithmetic. Sam thought about the little girl asleep against her mother's arm.