Chapter 18 - LUCINDA’S LAST APPEAL
Lucinda challenged one part of the Stewardship dissolution through civil arbitration.
Her lawyers argued she had contractual retirement benefits tied to the office, including administrative support and defined use of a Morello House suite.
She was right about part of it.
The family initially treated her loss of authority as though it erased every benefit.
It did not.
Arbitrator ruled:
Operational authority remained terminated.
Administrative support benefit survived in reduced form.
Her residence-use rights survived according to contract.
She was entitled to reimbursement for certain expenses the family office had refused after dissolution.
Good.
Antagonists have rights too.
We paid.
Some relatives called it rewarding misconduct.
No.
It was honoring contract.
Lucinda lost the appeal to regain authority.
Won the claim to benefits she actually possessed.
The world did not need moral purity to enforce paper.
That mattered to me because Morello history was full of men deciding bad people deserved no rights.
Modern life required better.
Then Lucinda used her restored administrative assistant for exactly what the benefit permitted:
medical appointments.
Travel.
Correspondence.
Not family commands.
She complained it felt like being “managed.”
I said:
May you like
“You are being assisted.”
She hated precision almost as much as I had learned to love it.
