Calvin Odom reached the top step, took off his hat, and nodded to Cora Beth before he looked at anyone else.
"Evening, Cora Beth," the old lawyer said. "Darnell, thank you for coming by to witness."
"Happy to, Mr. Calvin," Darnell said from the corner rocker.
Preston stepped forward on the porch boards. "Calvin, we appreciate you driving out on a Sunday. Cora Beth hasn't boxed a stick of her things, so the sooner you read the trust and take the keys, the sooner Sloane and I can load this truck."
Calvin looked at the stack of flattened boxes on the steps, then pulled a porch chair up to the white wicker table and sat down.
"Everybody take a seat," Calvin said. "I don't read legal instruments to people standing over me like auctioneers."
Sloane sat on the porch rail. Preston stayed by the screen door with his thumbs hooked in his belt. Calvin opened his canvas satchel, lifted out a blue linen folder, and adjusted his bifocals.
"This is the Emmett Holloway Homestead Trust," Calvin read, his voice steady across the yard. "Darnell Rivers is sitting with us because for five consecutive Decembers, at Emmett's request, he served as witness alongside my notary."
Sloane frowned. "The mailman witnessed Dad's trust?"
"Darnell was here every Friday when he brought Emmett's Parkinson's medicine," Calvin said without looking up. "You weren't. Now listen closely. Under Article Three, Cora Beth Holloway holds an unbreakable life estate in this house and all forty acres for as long as she lives."
Preston's hand dropped from his belt. "A life estate? She stays here?"
"She stays here for the rest of her natural life," Calvin said, turning a page. "Furthermore, all Morgan County property taxes and roof upkeep are paid directly from Emmett's timber fund, so neither of you can crowd her out with bills. In addition, Cora Beth receives sole title to the 1972 Chevrolet pickup."
Calvin looked over his glasses at Preston. "Emmett told me if you took those truck keys off the brass hook before his funeral was over, I was to ask for them back in front of witnesses."
Preston's face went dull red, though his hand stayed at his side. "Fine," he said tightly. "She's seventy-three. When she passes on, who gets fee-simple title to the farm? Sloane and me?"
"That brings us to Article Four," Calvin said, laying his palm flat on the green leather guestbook.
"Emmett loved this place," Calvin said quietly. "He also knew the two of you quit visiting after he married Cora Beth, even after his diagnosis five years ago. So Article Four directs that when Cora Beth passes on, fee-simple title to the farm goes entirely to whichever of Emmett's two children recorded the most visits in this green porch guestbook during the final five years of Emmett's life, with a minimum of ten visits required."
The wind rattled the dry pecan leaves overhead.
"Wait a minute," Preston said, stepping toward the table. "You can't base a deed on a porch notebook. Cora Beth has been alone in this house since Thursday. She could have torn pages out."
"Your father knew you'd say that," Calvin replied.
He turned the green guestbook over, opened the back board, and broke the red wax seal on the law-office pocket glued inside. From it, he slid five stapled packets of photocopied pages, each stamped with a brass notary seal.
"Every December for the last five years," Calvin said, "I brought a portable copier out here, and Darnell witnessed the year-end photocopies of every page in this book so no pages could ever be added or torn out. The originals stayed in my safe."
Calvin spread the five notarized packets across the wicker table.
"In five years, Darnell's name is in this book two hundred and forty times," Calvin said. "Neighbor women's names are here every week with soup and figs. The county bookmobile ladies are here."
He looked up at Emmett's children.
"Preston Holloway appears zero times," Calvin said. "Sloane Holloway-Reed appears zero times."
Sloane held onto the porch post. "Then where does the farm go?"
"Because neither child met the ten-visit minimum," Calvin read, closing the folder, "upon Cora Beth's passing, the farm passes to the Morgan County Library Bookmobile Endowment."
Preston stared at the five brass notary seals lined up on the wicker table. Slowly, without meeting anyone's eyes, he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the keys to the 1972 pickup, and set them on the wicker table beside the guestbook.
"I have to get this box truck back to Atlanta before six," Preston muttered. He walked down the steps, picked up his bundle of flattened boxes, and tossed them into the empty rental truck.
Sloane did not follow him right away. She looked through the screen door at the yellow masking tape she had stuck to the parlor furniture on Friday. Then she sat down heavily on the top porch step and rested her elbows on her knees.
"After Mama died, walking up these steps felt like erasing her, Cora Beth," Sloane said, her voice low against the wind. "Four times I drove all the way from Savannah to the Madison exit, and every time I sat at the light and turned back around."
Cora Beth looked down at the younger woman's bent shoulders. For nineteen years she had waited for one of Emmett's children to speak one honest sentence on this porch.
"Your father kept your mama's photograph in the upstairs hall the whole nineteen years we were married, Sloane," Cora Beth said gently. "I dusted the glass every Tuesday. Nobody in this house was ever being erased."
Sloane pressed her fingers to her eyes and nodded once as Preston backed the box truck down the gravel drive.
Calvin Odom packed his satchel, shook Darnell's hand, and walked down to his town car.
Cora Beth went inside to the kitchen sink. She washed two more iced-tea glasses in warm soapy water, rinsed them clean, and filled all the glasses with sweet tea over ice. On her way back through the parlor, she peeled the yellow masking tape off the walnut secretary and tucked it into her apron pocket.
When she stepped back onto the porch, the rental truck was gone down the county road. Sloane still sat on the top step beside her white car, her keys resting in her lap.
Cora Beth set a cold glass of iced tea on the porch rail beside Sloane's elbow.
Then she opened the green porch guestbook on the wicker table to a clean Sunday page, laid the working brass pen across the paper, and looked at the post.
"The thermometer on the post reads sixty-eight degrees, Sloane," Cora Beth said quietly, "if you want to write it down before you drive home."