Samuel Pierce told me three things on the afternoon of my MBA graduation, and each one landed in my life like a stone dropped through glass.
The first was that my grandparents had left me their entire estate.
The second was that the estate was not small.
And the third was that six months before my grandmother died, my parents had visited Samuel’s office and asked whether there was a way to “correct” the will before it became a problem.
At first, I did not understand what he meant. I was standing outside the auditorium at the University of Washington with my cap still pinned crookedly to my hair, a diploma folder pressed under one arm, and a crowd of laughing graduates spilling around me like a river I had stepped out of. Someone nearby popped a confetti cannon. A mother sobbed into her daughter’s shoulder. A little boy shouted that he wanted ice cream.
I remember those sounds because Samuel’s voice made everything else feel unreal.
“Correct the will?” I repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “Your father felt your grandparents had been influenced. Your mother believed Ashley should be provided for. They were very clear that leaving the property and accounts solely to you would create what they called an imbalance.”
An imbalance.
That word nearly made me laugh.
My whole life had been an imbalance, but apparently it only became visible when something finally tipped toward me.
