Chapter 6 - The Trust
Evelyn took a seat across from us.
“The trust still exists.”
I stared at her.
“That law firm dissolved.”
“The trust moved.”
“Where?”
“That’s what Daniel was trying to determine before he got sick.”
“And you found it?”
“Part of it.”
“What does that mean?”
She reached into the box and lifted a legal document.
“This establishes the original trust. There were amendments later.”
“How much money?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I truly don’t.”
Grace nudged my sleeve.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Trying to turn everything into an interrogation.”
“I’m asking questions.”
“You ask questions like people lose points for answering.”
Evelyn covered a smile with her hand.
I looked between them.
“This partnership is becoming annoying.”
Grace smiled.
For the first time since I entered the cellar, the room felt less dangerous.
Not safe.
But human.
I spent the next hour reading.
Most of the documents were exactly what Evelyn claimed.
My mother, Maria Caruso, had placed money from her own inheritance into a protected trust.
Not money from my father’s enterprises.
Her money.
Her father had owned a chain of appliance stores throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. Entirely legitimate. Entirely boring.
I had forgotten that my mother had once been wealthier than my father.
One document listed possible uses.
University tuition.
Medical care.
Adaptive technology.
Housing.
Business formation.
Travel related to education.
Vocational programs.
A primary residence.
Nothing about inheriting power.
Nothing about maintaining a family name.
It was the least Caruso document I had ever seen.
Grace explored the box carefully with Evelyn.
There were Braille labels on each folder, prepared long before modern embossers became common.
“Grandma planned this for someone blind?” she asked.
Evelyn shook her head.
“Not specifically.”
“Then why Braille?”
“She wanted the archive readable in more than one way. Some labels are also in large print.”
Grace ran her fingers across another folder.
I thought about my mother again.
She had volunteered at a rehabilitation hospital when I was young.
Every Wednesday.
My father used to complain that she came home smelling like cafeteria coffee.
I had never once asked what she did there.
Children rarely understand that their parents lived entire lives before becoming parents.
“What else did the Circle do?” Grace asked.
“Mostly practical things,” Evelyn said. “They connected families with specialists, schools, confidential advisors.”
“Spies?”
“No.”
“Good. Dad has enough of those.”
“I do not have spies.”
Grace turned her blank gaze toward me.
Evelyn raised an eyebrow.
I sighed.
“Fine. Some people provide information.”
“That’s a spy with health insurance,” Grace said.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Grace grinned.
The sound surprised all three of us.
It had been a difficult afternoon.
Yet suddenly we were sitting in a dusty library making jokes about surveillance.
Families are strange that way.
They can hold fear and affection in the same room without asking either to leave.
Eventually Marco knocked.
“Dinner in twenty.”
I nodded.
He hesitated.
“Anthony?”
“Yeah?”
“You sure everything’s okay?”
I looked at my daughter.
At Evelyn.
At the open box.
May you like
“No,” I said. “But I think it might be.”
He accepted that.
