Chapter 11 - The Bank Visit and the Book
The following morning, under a pale Chicago sky, the three of us entered a private banking office overlooking LaSalle Street.
Nina met us in the lobby.
The bank officer verified Evelyn’s identification twice.
Then a manager joined us.
Then another phone call was made.
Finally, the manager returned carrying a document.
“Ms. Shaw,” she said, “your authorization is valid.”
Evelyn stared at the paper.
“How?”
“It was activated through a successor clause eighteen months ago.”
“By whom?”
The manager hesitated.
“I can tell you after access is completed.”
We entered the vault.
Grace held my elbow.
Not because I required it.
Because she chose to.
The safe-deposit box was surprisingly small.
Evelyn inserted the bank key.
The manager inserted hers.
Two locks turned.
Inside lay a single blue leather notebook.
Nothing else.
Grace heard my breath change.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Evelyn lifted the book with trembling hands.
Embossed across the cover was the Meridian symbol.
Underneath it were four words.
FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE.
We returned to the private room.
Evelyn opened the cover.
The first page contained my mother’s handwriting.
Names filled the next pages.
Dozens of them.
Teachers.
Attorneys.
Doctors.
College administrators.
Business owners.
Counselors.
Some were dead.
Some retired.
Some still active.
Beside each name was a short note describing what help they had once agreed to provide.
Grace leaned close as Nina read portions aloud.
Then Evelyn reached the last written page.
Her hand stopped.
“What?” I asked.
She turned the book toward me.
A single entry had been added recently.
The handwriting was not my mother’s.
It read:
Grace Caruso — contact established. Do not direct her path. Give her tools. Let her decide.
Below it was a date.
Four months earlier.
The exact week Evelyn had begun working in my house.
And beneath the note were initials.
M.E.
Margaret Ellis.
Grace’s former teacher.
I looked at Evelyn.
She looked just as stunned as I felt.
Nina quietly closed her laptop.
Grace sat very still.
Then she asked the question none of us could answer.
“If Mrs. Ellis knew Evelyn was coming to our house before Evelyn knew about this notebook…”
She turned her face toward us.
“…then who sent her?”
For the first time since the Blue Book appeared, Evelyn Shaw looked frightened.
Not frightened of me.
That distinction mattered.
She looked frightened by the possibility that her own choices had been influenced without her knowledge.
Grace heard it in her breathing.
“You didn’t know,” my daughter said.
Evelyn looked at her.
“No.”
“You really didn’t.”
“No.”
Grace nodded once.
“I believe you.”
The bank room went silent.
I studied Evelyn.
Trust had always been easiest for Grace in ways it had never been for me.
Maybe because blindness forced her to evaluate people through patterns I ignored.
Tone.
Consistency.
The way someone waited before answering.
Whether footsteps approached when help was needed or merely when someone wanted control.
I had spent a lifetime gathering information.
Grace gathered people.
Sometimes I wondered which of us was better equipped to judge them.
Nina closed the Blue Book.
“We shouldn’t assume Margaret sent Evelyn.”
I looked at the last page.
“She knew Evelyn was in my house.”
“Apparently.”
“And she wrote ‘contact established.’”
“Yes.”
“What would you call that?”
“Evidence of knowledge. Not evidence of control.”
“That sounds like lawyer language.”
“I am a lawyer.”
Grace smiled.
I didn’t.
“Find Margaret.”
Nina lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m a trusts attorney, Anthony.”
“You have investigators.”
“So do you.”
“Mine make people nervous.”
“That may be because you refer to them as ‘mine.’”
Grace covered her mouth.
Evelyn stared at the table.
I pointed at both of them.
“I am surrounded by disloyalty.”
“You’re surrounded by women who aren’t scared of your eyebrows,” Grace said.
“My eyebrows?”
“You do a thing.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do,” Evelyn said.
Nina nodded.
May you like
“Very prosecutorial.”
I decided to ignore all three of them.
