673: Left Behind
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Whenever I have a Marcus apartment for our interview, she opens the door holding a glass of wine. Oh, I need to have a glass of wine while I talk about my family. This is not totally a joke. She's got 11 brothers and sisters, and yes, Catholics, old-school, Irish mom, Italian immigrant dad, and the kids do not all get along. How many of your siblings do you not speak with? I don't speak to any Victor Mary Jo Marina Nancy. Five. You were counting on your fingers. 'Cause I have to think! We sit down on the couch together. The living room is decked out for a game of Thrones viewing party, and I mean, like, seriously decked out? Like, 15 plastic swords stuck into the back of an old town chair to make a fake iron throne? A miniature weirwood tree? I have no idea where you get something like that. It's totally distracting. On the coffee table in front of us, she's gathered stuff for the interview. There's a glass of white wine. What kind of wine? Savvy on Blanc. And there's a book? And there's a list? What is the list? This is the order of the items of the things in the order that I would like them from my parents' estate. Her parents' estate. That's what I'm here to talk to her about. When her parents died, her dad in 2006, her mom two years ago, they didn't specify in their wills which child would get which items. No, no, no. They left all that to the kids. Saying simply, everyone should get an equal amount. Sibling number eight in the birth order, Joe, a lawyer, the sunny one in the family, was the sibling left with the truly thankless task of dividing the stuff. Their parents were these imposing, brilliant people who they still talk about in this worshipful way. What they have left of them is just these things, right? And this mandate. To get along well enough, one last time, to split it up amongst themselves. And they don't want to screw it up. They want to honor their parents' last request. But they know it's going to be tough for them, given how they are sometimes with each other. So the invented process that is so elaborate, honestly I found it kind of shocking. Impressive, but extreme. It includes the book, the one on the coffee table that Joe had created. It's thick and spiral bound. The photos of all 196 items of the parents that are up for grabs. Each item gets a number. He's given a lot of thought to it. And there's four pages of rules and regulations of what you have to do. Actually, it's five pages of rules. Single space, 23 rules. Here's number ten. Number ten. The estate is not recognizing any alleged oral promises by mommy or daddy to give certain items to certain distributors. Thus, all such items are available to be selected. The documented proof is required to show that intent and to exclude an item from the selection process. Thus far. Notice how every eye is being dotted here. Hard not to wonder what mommy and daddy would think of it. The kids so suspicious of each other that all this would be necessary. The mom's engagement ring, for example, to prove to anybody who might doubt that this is actually her ring. The one that she wore when they were little kids and her whole life until the viewing at her funeral. There's a photo they took of the ring being handed from the funeral director. Over to one of the brothers who then took it to a jeweler who certified that it is, in fact, the original diamond. But the siblings that I talked to agreed, all this is necessary.
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