Chapter Thirty-Two Mary
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mary
Two and a half years ago
There are some things you never come back from.
For me and Brad, that was him making out with my twin sister. Even if he thought it was me. Even if I knew Sam and what she was capable of—and how she’d gone to great lengths to make sure he thought it was me he was sleeping with.
I was at an emotional stalemate: unable to blame him but unable to forgive him.
There was simply no way forward with us, so I moved forward with myself.
Back in South Florida, I rented a small apartment and took a new job at the Everglades Wildlife Education Center, giving talks and tours to school kids.
In my free time, I kayaked the Wilderness Waterway for hours on end, letting my subconscious do the work of sorting through all my emotional baggage while I pushed myself to my physical limits.
I didn’t see my parents until my twenty-first birthday—our twenty-first birthday.
I’d been in touch with our family attorney, Ken Swaddle, about collecting the trust fund my grandfather had set up for me.
When he’d mentioned that my parents would be joining the meeting, I hadn’t thought much of it at first. Maybe they wanted to wish me a happy birthday in person.
Maybe this was their olive branch, a way to smooth things over after everything that had gone down in California.
But when I walked into the conference room and saw them sitting there in their tailored suits, postures perfect and expressions carefully neutral, something in my gut twisted.
This wasn’t a family reunion. This was an ambush.
“Mary, it’s good to see you again,” Ken said with a warm smile.
“Thank you,” I replied, not volunteering any other pleasantries.
He got the idea and got down to the details. “Right, well, we’re here to discuss the trust set forth by your grandfather Lloyd Langston.”
Something about the way he said discuss didn’t sit right with me.
“You mean distribute, don’t you?” I asked carefully. “It’s my twenty-first birthday, and I’m due my first distribution.”
When his eyes darted nervously toward my parents, I knew. They were going to fight it.
“Mary, your parents are contesting the release of the trust funds.”
I leaned forward, placing my forearms flat on the table. “Really? And why is that?” I asked, working hard to keep my tone even and my words measured.
Ken cleared his throat. “They, uh, they’re asserting you’re not competent to manage the funds and are requesting to be made trustees . . .”
“Excuse me?” I interrupted, incredulous. “Not competent? Seems to me I’ve done just fine on my own for the last three years now. I haven’t asked you for a penny.”
“Yes, well . . .” Ken began, but my mother jumped in.
“Mary, since you left for California, your life has been a hot mess.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“You were arrested—”
“I wasn’t charged!” I protested, but she kept going as if I hadn’t spoken.
“You’ve been all over the tabloids. Before, you could argue that it was all part of your new public persona—but not now. Now you’re back here without a degree, without a job—”
“I do have a job!”
“Barely making minimum wage,” Dad pointed out. “And now you’re running out of money to pay for that place you’re staying in.”
“How the hell would you know that?” I demanded, then held up a hand. “You know what? I don’t even want to know. Just tell me. Tell me what it’s going to take for you to sign off on this.”
My parents looked at each other in surprise. They hadn’t expected the question.
Dad shrugged before answering. “Um, well, we’d like you to move home—just until you can get back on track.”
I hated the idea, but I also knew what they knew—that I didn’t have the resources to fight them on this. Hell, I didn’t even have a copy of the trust document, and somehow I doubted they were going to make it easy for me to get my hands on it.
No, if I wanted to get what I wanted, I was going to have to play their game, their way. At least for a little while.
“And exactly how long do you think that’s going to take?”
Again they exchanged questioning looks. Clearly they’d figured they’d have a few more rounds of sparring with me before they had to hammer out the details. They were winging it.
“Uh—a year . . . ?” Dad was asking Mom. She nodded. “Right. A year,” he repeated, more firmly.
I considered this for a few moments before nodding. “Fine. One year. But I come and go as I please. I’ll decide if I want to take classes or work—and where. You’ll release enough of my money for me to buy a car, along with a stipend. At the end of the year, you sign off without any stipulations.”
“We’ll sign off if you haven’t taken any actions that we deem destructive,” Mom countered, finally getting them in the game with demands of their own.
“Too vague,” I replied, rejecting her choice of words. “I don’t like the idea of you deciding what is and what is not destructive.”
“Okay, fair enough,” she agreed, surprisingly. “We can work out those details here with Ken before we leave if you like.”
I didn’t like that I didn’t really have a choice.
Then again, I didn’t really have a plan either.
Not yet, anyway.