Flash Nano 22 - Abundance

Flash Nano 22:
Use any part of this card/artwork/idea in a piece. I chose the word abundance

 

ABUNDANCE

Amy turned the key to her mother’s flat. The key had been given to her by the executor of her mother’s estate.

She had not been in the apartment nor to France since her parents broke up when she was seven. That was 30 years ago. Her father had taken her to the United States. Her mother stayed in Paris.

Her mother didn’t totally ignore her. There were phone calls and presents that crossed the Atlantic, but neither Amy nor her mother were willing to cross the Atlantic themselves.

Amy’s father had died at the beginning of the year. Then last month her mother died making her technically an orphan although not much sympathy is given to adult orphans.

The apartment occupied the top floor of a four-story building. It was in Puteux, a commune touching the city and nor far from La Defense.

Not knowing what to expect, Amy was still shocked. The furnishings reminded her of photos of the interiors of Versailles. She knew her mother had remarried and it was her husband’s money that had put Amy through university and grad school.

Her job now was to empty the apartment for sale. Where to start? In Boston she’d have gone to the grocery store for cartons. Could she do that in Paris?

Were there any valuables among the overcrowded rooms?Maybe contact the executor to recommend anyone who could evaluate the paintings, the tiny sculptures and jewelry, if there was jewelry.

Where to start. Maybe take off her coat. Dust, visible in the sunlight filtering through the window, caused her to cough.

“Bonjour.” The voice was followed by a woman about her age. Instead of wearing jeans like Amy, she was dressed in knife-creased pants and an obviously cashmere sweater.

“You probably want to speak English,” the woman said.

“My French is under-wonderful.” Amy wondered who this person was.

“I’m Camille. Henri’s daughter. I’ve inherited a quarter of this flat and everything in it.”

Amy vaguely knew that her mother’s second husband had a daughter, which she didn’t want to think about. She had done enough therapy to accept what she couldn’t change.

Camille made two cups of coffee. “We need to work together to settle the estate. Paul didn’t explain the law to you?”

Paul? Paul Martin probably. The executor.

Martin took her call and explained to Amy under French law when one member of a couple died, the survivor inherited half of everything. The other half was divided among all the children equally.

Amy wondered why she hadn’t been notified when Henri died that she had a quarter of all this. Then Martin explained that Amy would have inherited all of her mother’s half since she had never been Camille’s mother.

Camille could have resented Amy because she ended up with part of her father’s inheritance. Amy could have resented Camille for having time with a mother she didn’t know.

Over the next few days as they went through everything they discovered they had a lot in common: love of classical music, art and nature. Amy didn’t know the books Camille read, and Camille didn’t know the ones Amy loved. Neither of them enjoyed reading the other one’s language but reading was of major importance to them.

The man who did the evaluations estimated that her mother had close to 100,000 Euros in jewelry. An auction house evaluated three paintings at another 200,000.

They took lunch breaks from the packing at the restaurant around the corner. It was typical of small French restaurants, 20 small linen-covered tables, a menu du jour. They chatted about their very different lives. “I suppose we’re stepsisters,” Amy said.

“Demi soeur,” Camille said.

“If we’d lived together all those years we might have fought over clothes,” Amy said.

“Now we should fight over every centime,” Camille said. “Except, I don’t want to.”

“I’ve too much on my plate.” Amy laughed as Camille glanced at her almost empty plate. “Une expression.”

“Moi aussi. Me too,” Camille said. “We’d each get less after we paid the notaires, lawyers.”

They finished their espressos. “Do you think we can work it out ourselves?” Amy said just as Camille said, “We’re intelligent women, we should be able to divide the stuff fairly.”

That had been ten years ago. They didn’t sell the flat but rented it. Camille took care of the rental issues. Somethings such as a necklace that had been her mother’s went to Camille. Earrings Amy kept.

People told Amy she was a fool. Amy knew that much of the abundance she’d fallen into had been Henri’s before his marriage to her mother. 

It was still a windfall. Not just in money. As older orphans, the two women had gained family.