Chapter 27 My Mother’s Gift
From the scraps I’d dug out about my mother, Amy finally had enough to work with: a birth date and a birthplace in France.
It wasn’t much, but with Amy, it was enough.
She began digging. Hacking birth registries in France.
Cross-checking census databases. Pulling immigration records no ordinary person could ever access. Within days she had tons of info.
My mother, Ines Laurent, had been the youngest of three. She had two older brothers. Her parents had been in their forties when they had her, an unexpected child.
They were still alive.
Seventy-eight and seventy-four now. Frail. Living somewhere on the outskirts of Lyon.
It took me weeks to gather the courage to write to them and the email ended up painfully simple:
Bonjour,
My name is Ashley Richards. I believe I may be related to you.
I have been searching for the family of my mother, Ines Laurent Richards.
I recently found information that led me to your names, and I hope I am not mistaken.
I took a DNA test, and if you are willing, confirming from your side would tell us the truth.
I have never known my mother’s family, but I would like to.
If this message has reached the wrong people, I apologize.
If not… I hope we can speak soon.
Respectfully,
Ashley
I read the message a dozen times before hitting send.
The reply came sooner than I expected.
Their message was warm, hopeful, but cautious, understandably so. They had an attorney in the U.S., someone who had handled American matters for them in the past. He coordinated everything—DNA kits, chain-of-custody documents, shipping, verification.
One week later, the results came in.
They were my grandparents.
Their health was too poor to travel. But my uncles, my uncles, flew out instead.
We met at a restaurant one town over. Neutral ground. I didn’t want Dad or Marissa anywhere near this.
When I walked in, both men stood so quickly their chairs nearly toppled.
They stared at me like I was a ghost resurrected.
Then the older one, étienne, covered his mouth with his hand and began to cry openly.
“You… you look so much like her,” he whispered. “Mon Dieu… c’est incroyable.”
I was grateful I had taken French in school. My accent was terrible and my vocabulary thin, but I managed a soft, hesitant, “Je suis très heureuse de vous rencontrer.”
We spoke mostly in English, but every now and then I forced out a clumsy French sentence.
Their eyes lit up every time I did.
They were patient with me. Gentle.
And in that moment, I made myself a silent promise.
I would polish my French until I could speak to them fluently. To speak to them in her language. To reclaim a piece of the woman I never got to know.
They told me everything they knew.
I learned about my mother.
She had been brilliant. Quiet. Kind. Stubborn. Their baby sister.
My mother’s murder was still an unsolved case.
Every year, they called the Berkeley Police Department asking for updates.
Nothing ever came of it. But recently there had been a news segment: homicide rates were down, detectives had more bandwidth, and old cold cases were being reassigned and reopened.
“It has been seventeen years,” one uncle said softly.
“Evidence fades. Witnesses forget. But DNA… technology moves forward.
There is always hope.”
What I didn’t expect, what I never could have imagined, was the truth my uncles revealed next.
My mother had set up two trust funds for me.
Her family hadn’t been wealthy in the billionaire sense, but they were comfortable, old French money threaded through a modest but successful family company my uncles now ran. Their combined assets hovered around ten million euros.
My mother had been the same. The kind of woman who built safety nets in advance. Who thought ahead. Who prepared.
Right after I was born, she’d established two trusts:
One: a $100,000 fund available at eighteen, with limited early withdrawals for “necessary expenses” provided receipts were submitted.
Two: a $200,000 fund set to open when I turned twenty-five.
A mother preparing for a future she thought she would live to see.
A mother ensuring her child would be safe, educated, independent.
And I had never known any of it.
In my last life, when I turned eighteen, the remaining balance should have transferred fully to me.
Except… it didn’t.
No attorney contacted me.
No forms.
No mention of a trust.
Nothing.
I could only guess what had happened.
Maybe Marissa forged my signature.
Maybe she slipped withdrawal documents or beneficiary transfers into the stack when she “helped” me with my college paperwork, something I had once been grateful for.
I remembered that gratitude now with a kind of dull disgust.
I had trusted her so desperately it hurt to think about it.
I’d been naive.
Gullible.
Easy to mislead.
And at twenty-five, when the second trust fund would have opened, I hadn’t been in any condition to notice anything. The drugs, the captivity… I had gone days without remembering my own name clearly. Signing something without knowing?
Very possible.
That thought brought back the memory of the boutique. Marissa pulling a card from the zipped inner pocket of her wallet, hesitating before using it, like she hoped I wouldn’t notice.
Was it my money?
A few days later, through the attorney, I requested the trust’s transaction history.
The card was linked to the eighteen-year trust.
She had been using my money.
For clothes.
For Apple.
For God knows what else.
And probably for years.
A slow, cold anger unfurled in my chest.
My mother had left that money for me.
For the daughter she wouldn’t have the chance to raise.
For my safety, my education, my independence.
And Marissa had been draining it like it was her personal allowance.