Chương 3
A spare tire sat below.
Beside it, fitted into the foam organizer, was a rectangular steel case.
No one spoke.
Emily touched it.
Susan whispered, “Michael.”
Not to Emily.
To the dead man.
Emily pulled the silver key from the ring.
Susan stepped closer.
Robert raised one hand.
Susan stopped.
“I am not going to take it.”
“You asked for it six times,” Robert said.
“I said I'm not going to take it now.”
Emily fitted the key into the lock.
It turned easily.
The lid opened.
Inside were documents sealed in clear plastic sleeves.
A small notebook.
Two envelopes.
A flash drive.
A copy of the car title.
And on top of everything, a photograph.
Emily picked it up.
She was fourteen in the picture, asleep on the couch with one leg hanging off the side. Her father sat on the floor beside her holding a bowl of popcorn and making a face at the camera.
Susan had taken the photograph.
Emily knew because the date was written on the back in her mother's handwriting.
For a moment the four people around the open trunk stopped being enemies.
They were simply people who missed the same man.
Then Emily lifted the first document.
PARKER FAMILY SECURITY TRUST.
Her name appeared underneath.
Emily Parker, beneficiary.
She stared at it.
“I don't understand.”
Susan looked away.
Robert's jaw tightened.
Margaret pulled her cardigan tighter beneath her coat.
Emily turned another page.
There were account summaries.
A brokerage account.
A money-market account.
Something labeled beneficiary distribution schedule.
The numbers made her feel stupid because they were too large to belong to any version of her life she recognized.
Four hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars.
She looked again.
Then at Susan.
“What is this?”
Susan rubbed both hands over her face.
“It was your father's.”
“Was?”
“He set it aside.”
“For what?”
“You.”
Emily laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“I have forty-seven thousand dollars in student loans.”
Susan looked at her.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“I worked two jobs my last year of school.”
“I know.”
“I borrowed money from Grandma for my security deposit.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Emily pointed at the document.
“You knew this existed?”
Margaret spoke quietly.
“We knew there was a trust.”
“How much?”
“No.”
“You didn't know how much?”
“No.”
Robert said, “Michael told me it was enough that he wanted it protected.”
Emily flipped through pages faster.
Statements.
Letters.
A signed amendment.
An accounting page.
The last statement in the stack was dated only four months earlier.
The balance was lower.
Much lower.
Emily read the number twice.
Three hundred and twelve thousand.
She looked at Susan.
“What happened to a hundred and seventy thousand dollars?”
Susan's lips parted.
“Some of that money was spent on you.”
Emily waited.
“Your tuition.”
“I had scholarships.”
“Not all of it.”
“I had loans.”
“There were medical bills.”
“I had insurance.”
“Not everything was covered.”
“What medical bills?”
“Therapy. The outpatient program after Michael died. Your prescriptions for a while. Your apartment deposit. Your last semester when you couldn't work.”
Emily stared.
Those things were true.
She had simply believed Susan paid for them.
Her mother had let her believe that.
Emily looked down at the statement.
“And the rest?”
Susan did not answer.
Robert did.
“The house.”
Susan spun toward him.
“Shut up.”
Emily's eyes moved to her mother.
“What about the house?”
Susan's chin lifted.
“I kept it.”
“With my money?”
“With family money.”
“It says my name.”
“Your father was dead and the mortgage still came every month.”
Emily felt the cold differently then.
Not as weather.
As something entering beneath her clothes.
“How much?”
Susan rubbed at a spot on her thumb.
“Emily.”
“How much of my money did you put into the house?”
“I don't know from memory.”
“You know.”
“I don't.”
“You've been hiding this for three years.”
“I have been surviving for three years.”
The words echoed faintly across the quiet yard.
A dog barked somewhere behind a fence.
A delivery van rolled slowly through the intersection at the end of the street, tires whispering over packed snow.
Emily looked down at the documents again.
There was no movie moment in which everything became obvious.
There were just pages.
Numbers.
Dates.
Transactions.
Some she recognized.
Some she didn't.
Her father's death had become columns.
Susan took a step closer.
“I never bought anything extravagant.”
“That isn't the question.”
“I didn't go on vacations. I didn't buy jewelry. I didn't start living some secret life.”
“That isn't the question.”
“I paid the mortgage. Taxes. Insurance. The furnace went out. The roof leaked over the back bedroom. I paid your health insurance until you were twenty-six—”
“I'm twenty-five.”
Susan stopped.
Emily stared at her.
Susan looked away.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I actually don't think I do anymore.”
Margaret touched Emily's elbow.
Emily pulled away.
Her grandmother's hand dropped.
“I need to read all of this.”
Susan shook her head.
“Not standing in the snow.”
“Then I'll take it inside.”
Susan's eyes went to the case.
“No.”
Robert said, “Susan.”
“No. She cannot just take documents she doesn't understand and start making accusations.”
Emily looked at the trust again.
“My name is on them.”
“You are the beneficiary. That is not the same thing as understanding what they mean.”
“Then explain.”
Susan exhaled.
“I can't explain three years in a driveway.”
“You found time to hide it in a trunk.”
“I did not put it there.”
“Dad did?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew it was there?”
Susan hesitated.
“That there were papers. Not exactly what.”
Robert laughed under his breath.
Susan glared at him.
“What?”
“You tried to get that key from me twice.”
“Because Michael was dead and it was our property.”
“No. It wasn't.”
“You don't know that.”
“I knew what he told me.”
Emily faced him.
“What did he tell you?”
Robert's mouth closed.
It was the first time all morning he looked uncertain.
May you like
“Grandpa.”
“He said if anything happened to him, there were things you needed to receive directly.”
