A Bride for 100 Days

twenty-nine: what goes down

An extra long chapter in thanks to Shies322, Sweet-CHANCES, Abbsta, Bunniestiger, and the others that made today so great with the votes and comments!! xoxo /bella

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Mom stepped into the room clutching a large purse.

I was shocked when Garth's second son followed her in. Joe Carrick was a lawyer who lived in Chicago and rarely came back South. I barely knew him. 

We settled around the small conference table. Then Dad looked around and then shook his head. "Mary,  Alicia, join me on the patio?"

Joe half-stood in protest. 

"I promise there will be no recording or anything...we just need to have a quick conversation off the record."

Joe looked at mom and she nodded her agreement. The three of us stepped out onto the balcony and dad closed the slider behind us. 

Mom looked past us at the airport, holding her arms as though it wasn't over 90f.

I thought she might start talking. 

No. 

Actually, I just hoped.

Just like I hoped that she would put her arms around me like she used to do before...well, before Garth. And tell me this had all just been a nightmare. 

But she just stared at the planes taking off and landing.

Eventually, Dad tapped his phone, opened a picture, and held it up for us to see. 

Mom glanced at it, briefly. 

He took a deep breath. "This is the paperwork for the educational 2503-c trust set up for Alicia as stipulated in our separation agreement when Alicia was barely in elementary school. But here's the confusing thing: when I asked Alicia about it, she said that there was only about 100,000 in the account. So I didn't understand - where did the other 900,000 GO?"

He held up another picture. "Until my lawyers used Alicia's information to find this. A second trust that was set up the week after the divorce was final. The maximum tax-free amount, 13,000, deposited each year."

Mom refused to even look.

"Why two trusts? This stumped me for a while. Was it possible that you wanted to open a second trust to personally support Alicia's education? Or maybe a relative I never knew about? Maybe she did some child modeling you never reported and you tucked away the money?"

Mom rolled her eyes and I almost laughed. Modeling? Me? Ha! 

Dad tucked his phone away. "In a Sherlock Holmes novel is that eternal quote - Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

His eyes on me were spitting fire, almost black, as he paused for a plane going over. "While there are many reasons you would open a second trust for Alicia, there's only one possible reason you would do that and hide the original trust. It was a conspiracy, Mary. Probably between you and Garth. A plan to trick Alicia away from that million dollars right from the very start. She had always known an educational trust existed so just created one for her to find.  Did you ever care about our daughter, Mary?"

"Money is not love, San," she snorted.

"And yet the lack of it is why you stopped loving me."

I looked at mom, expecting her to blow up with denials. But she stayed silent.