Work Text:
The certified letter, addressed to Elizabeth, came in the mail two days after Neal's funeral. It was from a Manhattan attorney's office. It didn't say what it was in the matter of, just that the firm needed to talk to her.
She didn't mention it to Peter, instead calling to make an appointment with the firm's secretary. Right now, she hardly even cared what it was about -- an unpaid parking ticket, someone suing Burke Events, some unresolved piece of business dating back to Peter's incarceration or her kidnapping or any one of the hundred different things they'd gone through in the last few years ... she had trouble finding it in her to care. She was a weepy mess anyway, with the first-trimester pregnancy hormones, and she kept bursting into tears at random times and places. Everything seemed to remind her of Neal. The townhouse was filled with memories, and right now the bitter was all too heavily outweighing the sweet.
The attorney's office was modest, and the secretary was a pleasant older lady; her friendly greeting gave Elizabeth a little more hope that she and Peter weren't being sued for something. That would just be the sour cherry topping on this terrible, horrible week.
"Mrs. Burke? I'm John Hartley. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." The attorney ushered her into his office and closed the door. He was much older than she had expected, so stooped and gray that she was surprised he was still practicing law. Still, his eyes were sharp. He pulled out her chair with courtly manners before taking a seat behind the desk.
"I'm afraid I don't know what this is about."
Hartley placed a pair of reading glasses on his nose and opened a folder in front of him. "It's about a will, Mrs. Burke. I'm the family attorney for the Ellingtons --"
Hearing June's surname punched the breath out of Elizabeth; for a moment she thought that June had died, also. Then, through the pounding in her ears, she made out the word "Neal."
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice coming out slightly strained. "Could you repeat that, please?"
Unruffled, Hartley pushed up his reading glasses. "This concerns the last will and testament of one Neal Bennett."
"I see," was all she could say. So that really was his father's real name. And his. She had wondered about that. If Peter knew, he'd never told her.
Hartley flipped through the pages of the will, and then handed them across the desk to her. Surprised, Elizabeth took them.
"You're one of Mr. Bennett's beneficiaries, Mrs. Burke. The paragraph concerning your bequest is on the second page. Please take your time."
I, Neal George Bennett, being of sound mind -- Tears momentarily blurred the words in front of her. She blinked them fiercely away. "When did he have this drawn up?" she asked.
"About two years ago. Mrs. Ellington referred him to my office."
Of course she had. And it was just like June to make sure that Neal took measures to have his assets legally disposed of ... at least, the ones he legally owned.
This brought a fresh round of tears. The attorney wordlessly offered a box of tissues. Elizabeth took one, and forced herself to keep reading.
Most of the bequests went to June, others to various charities -- paintings, mostly, along with some antiques. Mozzie was mentioned nowhere, but of course he wouldn't want to be. And then she got to the paragraph concerning herself.
"To Elizabeth Burke I leave the Greatest Cake Bakery, and all its contents and assets ..."
"Oh," she said aloud.
***
She thought about selling it at first. With the baby coming, she would be struggling enough to keep one business afloat, let alone two.
But she couldn't. It felt as if selling it would be a betrayal of Neal's trust, even if she suspected he wouldn't care; as far as she knew, he'd had little to do with the bakery since buying it as part of his escape attempt three years ago. But it meant something to her. Selling it would mean severing one of her last links to Neal.
So she went down to inspect it and introduce herself. As she'd suspected, Neal didn't have much to do with the day-to-day operation of the place, although she was surprised to find out that the employees knew him. Apparently he used to stop by occasionally and help out in the kitchen. None of them had known who (or rather, what) he really was; the assumption in the bakery had been that he was a wealthy investor who'd bought it on a lark and liked to slum in the kitchen occasionally for stress relief ... which wasn't entirely wrong, but wasn't the whole truth either. Elizabeth chose not to enlighten them, and told them the part of the truth that she felt comfortable with: namely that their employer had died very suddenly, and she was a friend of the family and the new owner.
It turned out to be useful having a bakery under the Burke Events umbrella. The place was well-run and turned a tidy profit; Elizabeth rarely had to do anything. And it cut down considerably on catering costs, being able to prepare cakes, cookie trays, and other baked goods as an in-house operation.
And also, she found that she liked owning a bakery. She could see why Neal had kept it. Just stepping through the doors into warm air that smelled of baking bread and cinnamon put a little extra lift in her step.
Peter never visited the bakery with her. She'd told him about it straight away, of course, but he never went there with her, not even once. It took her a long time -- months, at least -- to realize that it wasn't all that far from Peter's office, and was within walking distance of several places where he spent a lot of time (the courthouse, for one) ... which made it likely that he used to go in there sometimes, back when Neal was still alive.
It was strange to discover slices of her husband's life that she didn't know about.
But for Elizabeth, it was nice to have something in her life that made her think of Neal in a good way. She'd never really thought of the bakery in connection with Neal; she hadn't even known that he'd kept it all these years. So she didn't have any sweet-turned-bitter memories to associate with it. It was something bright and positive that he'd left in the world, and she was glad that he'd asked her to look after it for him.
***
When the truth came out about Neal, Peter began packing the same night.
Elizabeth couldn't go; she was snowed under at Burke Events, and her sister wasn't able to take the baby on such short notice. Peter apologized profusely. "You could go, hon, it doesn't have to be me ..."
"Yes, it does." She understood why he needed to do this, and why he needed to do it now.
But his flight didn't leave until late morning -- the earliest he'd been able to book -- and Elizabeth was up that morning at four a.m. to drive uptown to the Greatest Cake. It was strange being out at this hour, the busy streets of Manhattan almost deserted. When she arrived, the bakery was just getting started for the morning. They welcomed her in, and she waited until the first batches of cupcakes came out. Forty-five minutes later, she left the bakery with a half dozen in an ornate pink box.
It wasn't anything special. She was sure Neal had been stuffing himself on the many wonderful products of French bakeries.
But there was always something special about treats from home. And she wanted him to know that she'd been taking good care of his bakery for him.