Chapter 38
ADELINE
Iwas sitting at my kitchen counter three days after getting home from Wisconsin, staring at the enrollment statement from Ellison Academy and wondering whether it was too late to un-quit my job. Surely, that has to be a thing.
People probably stormed out of workplaces all the time and came back after, and I hadn’t even stormed out. I’d just told them that I was resigning to focus on a few projects of my own while I found my feet after the divorce.
Maybe I could send an email. Hi, sorry about that little emotional speech I gave. I would actually love my job back.
The only other option to pay for the frightfully expensive private school I so badly wanted to send the girls to was to pivot entirely. Maybe I could become an influencer.
People seemed to make excellent money online for doing things like organizing pantries and reviewing lip gloss. I could do that.
Single Mom in Shambles. That could be my brand. I could make a killing.
“Hi, Mommy.” I looked up to see the girls walking into the condo with Amber. She’d taken them to the park after their morning of schoolwork, but the sunshine and fresh air didn’t seem to have helped cheer them up.
Jennifer’s shoulders were still slumped, a dark rain cloud hovering over her like it had every second for the last few days. Lu looked offended by the mere fact of her own existence. She’d been back to her old, grumpy self since the moment we’d gotten home.
Amber caught my eye and subtly tilted her head toward the hallway. I followed her a few steps away while the girls kicked off their shoes, their expressions so glum, they could easily have been mistaken for doomed prisoners.
“They’re still having a hard time,” Amber said quietly when she turned to face me in the hall. “Jennifer cried because another kid had a dog that looked like Bear and Lu raced a nine-year-old on his bike, then called him weak when she won.”
I nodded. Lu had not taken leaving Wisconsin well and neither had I, if I was being honest. Even Jennifer, who had the most incredible ability to find the silver lining in the darkest of times, was having trouble with it.
Amber squeezed my shoulder and disappeared with the girls toward the bathroom. The sound of water rushing into the tub filtered out a few moments later. I returned to the kitchen counter and the enrollment form waiting on it.
Ellison Academy was a fantastic school, probably the most prestigious in the city, but the reality was that I could never afford it.
Not unless I robbed a bank. The upside was that the public school I’d been talking to ever since I’d decided to move back to Chicago wasn’t bad either.
They’d been exceptionally helpful and kind. The girls could be happy there.
So I shoved the enrollment form away and turned to the stack of mail Amber had dropped on the counter on her way in. I worked my way through it, finding mostly bills, a grocery store flyer, and a newsletter from the pediatrician outlining proper hand-washing practices.
Near the bottom of the pile, there was a thick envelope from my bank. My family had used the same private bank for generations and their letters usually meant one of two things: either it was bad news or rich people nonsense. I already knew my trust fund was gone, so it couldn’t be bad news.
Frankly, there wasn’t enough money left in my account for that to be possible, which meant this was probably nonsense.
I slid my finger under the tab and opened it, fully expecting a booklet on new investment opportunities or a guide on how to make money on the stock market, but what I found myself staring at instead nearly stopped my heart.
At first, I genuinely thought I was reading it wrong or that maybe there had been a decimal error, but that didn’t make sense either because it was also a statement for the wrong type of account. According to the letter, this was about an estate account.
I didn’t have one of those, but it looked like one had been set up in my name with Jennifer and Lu attached as beneficiaries. And the supposed balance of the account was absolutely ridiculous. It was so absurd that for a second, I wondered if my grandfather had passed away.
That was the first thought that sped across my mind as I stared at the life-changing sum of money apparently sitting in an account owned by me. It was “girls go to private school and never need student loans” kind of money. A “much bigger, much better house paid for in cash” kind of money.
Hell, it was way more than just that, but then I remembered I’d texted with my grandfather just this morning. He was very much alive.
I must’ve blacked out for a minute because the next thing I knew I was in my bedroom with the door shut and my phone in my hand, calling Zach. He answered on the first ring. “Adeline? Is everything okay?”
The concerned alarm in his tone brought a thick lump of emotion to my throat. I lowered myself to the edge of my bed, my hand suddenly trembling a little as I stared blankly at the back of my bedroom door.
“Why are you giving me money?” I croaked past the massive lump. “I know it was you, Zach. I just got the confirmation letters from the bank and there’s no other way I suddenly have access to that amount of money.”
There was a beat of silence followed by a long exhale. So, it was him.
“Surprise,” he said. “I just paid the girls’ tuition for next year at Ellison, too. That is where you wanted to send them, right?”
Tears welled like magic on my eyelids and I very nearly stopped breathing. No one had ever listened that closely before. I’d mentioned Ellison once while we’d been in Wisconsin, one night over pizza while Amber and I had been discussing how we were going to keep the girls’ schoolwork on track.
“Why are you doing this?” I finally managed to ask, but at the back of my mind, a small, increasingly irritated voice already knew the answer. Why do you think? Are you really this blind? No, not blind. Damaged.
Zach didn’t answer right away, and in the silence that stretched between us, I could hear faint office noises at his end, phones ringing, a door shutting, and the faint rustling of papers.
“You’ve been through enough,” he said after a few long seconds. “This lets you live without having to worry about the girls.”
I shut my eyes. That tenderness I remembered from years ago was back in his voice, reminding me once more of exactly what I’d lost and what I might be losing again.
“I also made sure the Westwood and Morris deal goes through regardless of whether we marry,” he said. “Your grandfather still gets the security of the Westwood umbrella for you and for his company. It’s just not tied to you and I walking down the aisle anymore.”
“You did that?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want you feeling trapped by any potential fallout raining down on you as a result of the corporate end of the deal.”
Wow. Zachary Westwood seems to have decided his purpose in life is making me feel increasingly stupider about every dumb decision I’ve ever made. My throat tightened, but he was speaking again before I was even able to thank him.
“There was some more drama with Louis too, but I handled it,” he said. “You should be rid of him for good now.”
My heart sank. “What kind of drama?”
“You don’t need to even think about it,” he said firmly. “It’s over. I swear. If I thought there was any chance he would be back, I would tell you, but it was just another attempted powerplay. A weak one, at that. Stupid, even. It’s really nothing for you to worry about.”
My heart softened and my insides turned to goo when I realized that he meant it.
He wasn’t trying to control me or brush me off.
He’d genuinely wanted to shoulder it himself so I didn’t have to panic, and after doing absolutely everything alone for so long, the feeling of someone stepping in on my behalf nearly shattered me.
I sat there in silence, staring at the ridiculous estate statement spread across my comforter. He’d set us up for life. Me and the girls. Jennifer and Lu would never know the kind of fear I’d spent the past year drowning in, and it was because of him.
He didn’t have to do any of this. I had hurt him so badly almost a decade ago, then again the other night, and somehow, he continued to keep proving over and over again that he was still the best man I’d ever met.
What was I thinking?
“I can’t accept this money,” I whispered finally.
Zach chuckled. “I figured you’d say that.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he replied. “You also agreed to catalog the art at the Manor, remember? We desperately need it to happen. You can consider this an advance on the work you said you’d do there.”
“That is the most manipulative thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I sincerely doubt that, but hey, I learned from the best businessmen in the country.”
So surprised that he’d be joking at a time like this, I laughed, but the sound seemed to ease something in him too, because his own voice was gentler when he spoke again. “When do you want to come by?”
For a second, it felt exactly like it used to, like I was twenty-two again, lying on my apartment floor talking to my best friend for hours every night.
My whole body still instinctively relaxed at the sound of his voice.
It even felt like I was still secretly in love with him and hoping he might somehow feel the same.
Only, our feelings weren’t secret anymore. At least not on my end, and that was terrifying.
“I could come over tomorrow,” I said. “Just to take a first peek of what we’re working with. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
There was a tiny pause after that, neither of us hanging up even though there was nothing really left to say. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure how to end the conversation, but then my bedroom door creaked open and Jennifer slipped inside, clutching one of her stuffed animals against her chest.
Reality sank back in then, returning me to the present. The here and now. Things had been so much simpler back then, but I wasn’t twenty-two anymore, and although I liked to think I was so much wiser now, I’d likely ruined everything between us for good by losing my damn mind.
“I should go,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” Zach replied, but it didn’t sound like he wanted to end the call either. I sure knew I didn’t. “Goodnight, Adeline.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly made me burst into tears all over again. “Goodnight.”
Jennifer climbed onto the bed beside me as I hung up. “Was that Zach?”
“Yeah.”
She looked so relieved that it broke my heart a little. “Lu is really upset. She wants to go back to Wisconsin and play with him again.”
“I know, baby.”
“So do I,” she said sadly. “We liked it there and we left so fast.”
There wasn’t really an appropriate response to that. We’d left that fast because I’d had an emotional collapse and fled the state, and I knew they didn’t understand. God, I didn’t even really understand.
Jennifer fiddled with her stuffed animal for a moment before looking up at me again. “Are you and Zach going to be the prince and princess again, or does the story still not have a happy ending like before?”
I looked down at her small, hopeful face and felt my heart splinter because I honestly didn’t know. There was a chance that I might’ve wrecked our relationship forever, but even if I hadn’t, Zach could realize he deserved someone less damaged and less afraid. Anything could happen.
Eventually, I pulled Jennifer against me, kissed the top of her head, and decided to just be honest. “I don’t know, my love. I really don’t, but no matter what happens, you, me, and Lu? We’re going to be okay. I promise.”