I had lunch with Charlie the other day. Charlie is an old friend and he’s about my age, which means a young period of about 60 years. Charlie is married with a wife and two grown children. His mom died a few years ago, but his dad is still around and is a very healthy and alert 90-year old.

Something was bothering Charlie. He recently found out that in his father’s will, he was named the major beneficiary of the estate. Charlie is the only son, but not the only child: he has two sisters. So what was his problem with this prospect of great fortune? His conscience.

Charlie has always been close to his two elder sisters, Ellen and Megan. Ellen is 6 years older and she’s like a half-mother-half-sister. She was the one who would always save candy and other goodies for him and Megan from her friends’ parties. She was the one who would bring him home after school from kindergarten to about 5th grade when their mother was too busy. She would help him with his homework. She would prepare food for him, granted it might be milk and cereals. She sometimes even bathed him and laughed at how skinny he was. Now when Charlie brings his wife and children to visit, Ellen would take care of him and his family just the same; she would cook them fabulous clam chowder, bake fresh bread, grill the juiciest steaks and mix the freshest salad that comes from the farmers market.

Megan is only 2 years older than Charlie. They are the closest of siblings and friends. They went to the same grade school and high school and had 80% of the same teachers. They share a lot of facial resemblance. At school, people would come up to him and say, “You are Megan’s kid brother, aren’t you?” If he hesitated answering that unsolicited inquiry, Megan would pop out from behind and kissed him on his face, to his great embarrassment. But he loved it inside. So after a while, he would purposely kiss her back in front of her friends. Pretty soon they were known as “kissy Megan and sissy Charlie.” This went on for about 4 months when he was in 10th grade until their mom heard about it and told them to stop. Their father thought it was hilarious and said perhaps he and his wife should learn to do that too.

All three children — Ellen, Megan and Charlie — had known for decades that their parents had wills prepared. They just assumed that their parents’ assets would be shared equally among the three children when mom and dad died. It wasn’t until 2 months ago that his father told him the provisions of his will. In a gist, Charlie, being the only son, is to receive all the real estate and 80% of the other assets, such as life insurance, bank accounts, stocks and bonds. The two daughters would each receive 10% of the assets outside of real estate. His father is a fairly wealthy man. He owns about US$4,000,000 in real estate and another $1,000,000 or so in liquid assets. In other words, Ellen and Megan would each receive about $100,000 in cash should the father die today. That is $100,000 out of $5,000,000: a mere 2% of the total worth of assets. Good old primogeniture is alive and well in America.

*** To Be Continued ***

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