Eleanor Thompson walked into her son’s will reading expecting pain, but not humiliation. Richard was gone, the funeral was barely over, and the room inside his Fifth Avenue penthouse felt less like a family gathering than a victory party for his widow, Amanda.
The April rain had followed Eleanor from Greenwood Cemetery to the city. She had buried her only child that morning. Richard was thirty-eight. She was sixty-two. No parent should ever have to do that math.
Amanda, however, appeared almost untouched by grief. She moved through the penthouse in black designer clothes, greeting guests, accepting sympathy, and standing close to a man named Julian, whose hand on her waist made Eleanor’s stomach tighten.
Richard’s lawyer, Jeffrey Palmer, began reading the will in front of the assembled guests. The penthouse went to Amanda. So did Richard’s controlling shares in Thompson Technologies, his yacht, and the vacation homes in the Hamptons and Aspen.