The Ultimate Gift

Content Warning: This book sometimes engages in ableist and stereotypical views of disability, particularly blindness. It sometimes trivializes these disabilities. The book contains depictions of foster homes and may engage in stereotypical ideas of adoptive families. It contains references to death by suicide.

Narrator Theodore Hamilton, 80, sits behind his huge desk in the office of Hamilton, Hamilton, & Hamilton, one of Boston’s most prestigious firms, which he founded 53 years earlier and manages with his son and grandson. His long-time assistant, Margaret Hastings, enters and quietly announces a major client and friend of Hamilton, Red Stevens, died. She’ll manage the many details involved in handling Red’s estate, from contacting relatives to parrying the media storm that’s about to break. She offers her condolences and departs.

Two weeks later, in the firm’s conference room, Hamilton presides over the reading of the will. Red leaves to eldest son Jack his first company, Panhandle Oil and Gas, worth $600 million. Red’s words remind Jack he showed no interest in the company and therefore must make no attempt to control or alter it, lest that trigger a clause that transfers ownership to a charity. Hamilton knows Red did his philandering son a big favor.