Chapter 5

Mom had been dead for two days.

Two long miserable days and my world had spun around completely on its axis. I felt as if the last 48 hours were longer and the man at the desk in front of me didn’t make it any better. It felt like the world was whirling by me with incredible speed, while I was just sitting here, watching it all go by.

We’d been called to a lawyer’s office, and I didn’t know what to expect. I knew either way that it should make the situation better, or in the case of the butterflies fluttering through my stomach, even worse.

“Vicki, once again I’m sorry about your loss. I did speak to your Aunt Rose yesterday and if there’s anything that you need then let me know.”

I nodded my head as Ned spoke. He was Mom’s lawyer and friend when Grandpa died. He was the type of guy that all women relied on. Those were Mom’s words, not mine. The friend zone guy. The type that none of them were attracted to but should probably marry in a heartbeat. I’d wanted Mom to be with someone like Ned. He looked like Jon Favreau with a cute and knowing smile, but he had three kids and another one on the way. So, Mom and he were never an option, but I would have loved for her to meet someone like Ned. He’d only been married eight years and every two years, he and his wife would have another baby on the way.

He had been to our house for dinner a few times, until Stuart came into our lives, then it stopped. I knew the reason it stopped wasn’t because of his wife, who loved the idea of him not being alone when she went to stay with family. That was something that she did quite often, because she had a big family and they had a small place. She knew Mom wasn’t a threat and would be happy for him to get a homecooked meal once in a while. No, the reason he stopped coming for dinner was Stuart. He stopped a lot of things that we used to do. When he came into our lives it should have been a blessing for Mom, but it ended up being a living hell.

“Vicki, you want to do this now, or it could…”

“No!” I blurted the word out quite aggressively and then I repeated it more calmly, “No.”

He was staring at me. The same way that everyone I’d been in contact with had done since it happened two days ago. Teresa, Ava and I never were stuck for words, usually we ended our conversations with, “hey catch you on Snap later.” Or, “Come over after you finish eating.”

It was always something along those lines, because there wasn’t enough time in the day to finish up everything that we had to say, but yesterday was the first time that we’d said bye to each other. We’d known each other from middle school when I moved to the neighborhood right through high school and not once had we ever said goodbye. Not as far back as I could remember had we ever said bye to each other.

It was as if we were saying that we didn’t know when we would talk to each other again. Everything that had become familiar started to become unfamiliar and I didn’t like it. It made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.

My thoughts were interrupted as he started to speak, talk about my fate and by the look in his eye, I could tell that it wasn’t good news. Then again, all I kept thinking was that it couldn’t get any worse. I’d lost Mom. Stuart had run off. What else could go wrong?

“There’s no easy way to say it. I’ve tried to figure out if there’s some kind of error or something, but there is no money left in the accounts. Stuart, emptied it or rather all of them before your mom’s death.”

“That’s horrible!” Aunt Rose said with anger.

I was afraid she was going to cause a scene, something she’d done a couple of times since Mom died, but she’d just lost her twin sister. I figured it came with the territory. Either way, I took her hand to try to comfort her.

“Was there a trust fund for Vicki, at all, something he couldn’t touch?” she asked him, but I already knew the answer to that one. If there was no money in Mom’s account there sure as hell wasn’t a trust fund for me.

“No.”

“Savings account?” she asked, her eyes narrow as she stared Ned down.

“Gone!” He shook his head and stared at all of us in turn. “There’s nothing. Nothing new to report other than the fact that I did speak to the bank about giving Vicki a week to get her things and….”

I didn’t let him finish as I blurted out, “I only want a few things.”

I had a few clothes, books and stuff that I wanted but anything more than that, just felt too much. The one thing that I would want out of the house was Mom, and she was gone.

“You sure?” Aunt Rose asked.

I nodded for confirmation.

Before she could say another word, Ned interrupted, “Well, they’ve foreclosed on the house. She couldn’t do more than take a few things.”

I nodded, part of me wanted this over and done with and the other just wanted to get the hell out of here. I was finding it harder to breathe by the second. I thought that it couldn't get any worse, but it was getting there.

“Did you say, foreclosed?” I asked, double-checking if I’d heard him right.

He nodded. “Against my advice, your mother added him to the deed. Stuart used that to then take out a loan, or rather loans and cleared out the bank accounts. He took all the money.”

“Wow,” I whispered thinking that not only did he take Mom, but any chance of me ever going to college.

Was there any more damage that this man could do to my life?

Silence filled the room and I felt as if time, stood still for a while as no one moved. No one said anything and all I could hear was the echoes of the antique clock on the wall every time a minute passed by.

One more year and I would finish high school and I would be out of here and in Stanford hopefully.

What the fuck am I thinking?

I shook my head at the idea of it. Stanford wasn’t an option, not anymore. There was no money and as Aunt Rose looked at her phone, I could tell that she had news of her own and it wasn’t good.

“Everything’s gone,” she mumbled.

Graham faced her and asked, “Sorry?”

“Sis and I had two trust funds. We started it when Dad died, we agreed that one part would help Graham go to college and the other was for Vicki. I told her about Graham starting his music career and never heading to college. I wanted to empty out the account seeing as our original plan changed.”

“Rap career,” he corrected her, but as he said the word I could tell that he’d regretted interrupting her and went quiet again.

“But before we came to the office, I thought that maybe I’d find out what was in the account with interest, to see about Vicki going to college in case Vicki’s trust fund was gone. But it seems that mine is gone too. I don’t know how. I can’t explain or understand what Lily was going through and this whole thing is just making me feel sick. I wish that I’d taken her seriously when she called me. One minute Stuart was the best guy in the world and the next she didn’t want to talk about him. I just didn’t know what to think…”

“Your sister left a will and it has clear instructions in it,” Ned interrupted her to say.

“For what?” I asked, my eyes full of the hopelessness that Ned had given me. But another question entered my mind, did Mom write the will because she thought that she was going to die?

The way that his eyes rolled toward me, I knew that it had something to do with me.

Aunt Rose asked, “When was this will written?”

He cleared his throat before answering, “Two weeks ago.”

She knew! Mom knew that things were bad and that she would lose her life.

“Did she commit suicide?” All eyes focused on me, as if I hadn’t said the obvious. Why else would she change her will only two weeks ago?

“No. She was just playing it safe,” Ned said with sad eyes.

“Sweetie, why would you think that your mom would do that to herself?” Aunt Rose asked me, while patting my hand, trying to comfort me.

I’d watched her interview a couple of movie stars through their tragic times. Her big break as she called it. Her turn to shine as the top reporter that she’s always wanted to be. I'm sure that she did the same thing as she was doing to me now, comforting them by patting their hands as they poured their heart out to her, and I wondered for a split second.

Did she really love me?

Or did she come here just to find out if Mom had money and what she could get from her.

I was thinking too many bad thoughts, they were all making me paranoid as I was suffocating under my own existence.

“No idea, but Mom’s gone. She wrote a will and left fucking instructions!” I stood up. And as I headed out of the door. “The same reason she fucking ruined my life by clearing out my college fund and staying with a man that treated her like dirt. The same man that killed her.”

I was angry. Mom was dead, and everything was a shit storm. It was as if none of us had really known her. The knowledge that she knew that Stuart was cleaning her out changed everything. I wasn’t upset about not knowing that she knew about Stuart and the money, I was upset that she had known, and hadn’t kicked him out. And right now, that made me think I didn’t like her. Even if she was dead.