“The line is secure.”
“And Robert’s flowers are home.”
I reached up, wrapping my hands around hers, feeling the warmth of a life that no cruelty on earth could ever extinguish:
“Robert’s flowers were always home, Eleanor,” Eleanor Mercer-Vance replied:
“The house is clean.”
Mounted in solid teak on the cedar wall of the pavilion behind our rocking chairs…
Beneath a clean pane of museum-grade non-reflective glass…
Was the Four-Inch Solid-Titanium Transponder Key.
Beside it, resting inside a velvet-lined rosewood shadowbox, was the broken gold nib of Chief Justice Arthur Vance’s Montblanc fountain pen.
And beside the pen, preserved in a miniature bronze frame…
Was the original, restored seed packet of red and yellow marigolds, stamped *VOYD AB INITIO*, resting alongside Arthur Mercer Senior’s original handwritten 1944 sovereign survey patent:
`THE MERCER HOMESTEAD // PARCEL 10`
`ACREAGE: 40 MILES OF SUBTERRANEAN BEDROCK`
`STATUS: SOVEREIGN & UN-ENCUMBERED`
`HELD IN TRUST FOR THE LINEAL HEIRS // AD INFINITUM`
`INSCRIPTION: BUILT PLUMB. HELD TRUE.`
`BALANCE DUE: ZERO.`
