It helps to write this out, even though the order and sense are faulty.

Phillip called just now from Baltimore. I thought he sounded tired, yet excited. He had a meeting with his attorney about his father’s life insurance claim. For months now, the insurance company has refused to settle. They instigated an investigation into Professor Quinn’s death and held off paying the claim over the suspicion of suicide. Financially, of course, it put a strain on the Quinns with Seth to provide for and a newbusiness to run, but they have doggedly pursued legal action over this issue.

I don’t think I realized until today how vital it is to them to win this battle. Not for the money, as I originally assumed, but to clear any shadow on their father’s name. I don’t believe suicide is always an act of cowardice. I once considered it myself. Had the proper note written, the necessary pills in my hand. But I was only sixteen and understandably foolish. Naturally I tore the letter up, disposed of the pills, and put the matter aside.

Suicide would have been rude. Inconvenient for my family.

Doesn’t that sound bitter? I had no idea I’d harbored all this anger.

But the Quinns, I’ve learned, considered the taking of one’s own life selfish, cowardly. They have refused all along to accept or to allow others to believe that this man they love so much was capable of such a singular selfish act. Now, it appears, they will win this battle.

The insurance company has offered to settle. Phillip believes my deposition may have swayed them toward this response. He may be right. Of course, the Quinns are, perhaps genetically, ill-suited to settlements. All or nothing, is precisely how Phillip put it to me. He believes, as does his attorney, that they will have all very shortly.

I’m happy for them. Though I never had the privilege of meeting Raymond and Stella Quinn, I feel I know them through my association with their family. Professor Quinn deserves to rest in peace. Just as Seth deserves to take the Quinn name and to have the security of a family who will love and care for him.

I can do something to ensure that all of that happens. I will have to make this call. I will have to take a stand. Oh, my hands shake just at the possibility. I’m such acoward. No, Seth would call me a wimp. That’s somehow worse.

She terrifies me. There it is in black and white. My own mother terrifies me. She never raised a hand to me, rarely raised her voice, yet she shoved me into a mold of her own making. I barely struggled.

My father? He was too busy being important to notice.

Oh, yes, I see a great deal of anger here.

I can call her, I can use the very status that she insisted I achieve to gain what I want from her. I’m a respected scientist, in some small way a public figure. If I tell her I’ll use that, if I make her believe I will, unless she provides a written statement to the Quinns’ attorney, detailing the circumstances of Gloria’s birth, admitting that Professor Quinn attempted several times to contact her for verification of Gloria’s paternity, she will despise me. But she will do it.