Her mother brought out the black leather box, a little bigger than a wallet, and placed it in front of Abby.
“Sally left this in our mailbox about a month ago. I think things were going to get bad, so she did what she could.”
“Mom, I think there’s a lot more going on than you realize. Sally was mixed up with some bad people.”
Her mother looked at her sharply. “I know all about what Sally was up to, Abby. What do you know about it? Do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing for the past month?”
Abby knew she’d lost a lot of her mother’s trust over the years. All her hare-brained schemes and ‘new’ starts-in-life, each one getting put aside. But she also remembered the day she graduated from college and how proud her mother had been. The first one in the family to get a college degree. Of course Abby was going to conquer the world. She had looked the part, with her cum laude and awards. What her mother hadn’t realized was how much Abby had been going through the motions of school, that she’d maintained focus by cadging friends’ Ritalin and borrowing notes for classes that she just could not get. That she had no idea what she cared about or wanted to do.
For years she didn’t want her mother’s trust, who drained her energy and made her feel pathetic every time a start wouldn’t work out. Yet now she understood where her mother was coming from, that she didn’t want Abby to make the same mistakes with ‘bad people’. For her mother that had been her abusive, miserly husband, who’d promptly remarried and had left all of his fortune to the children of his second wife ‘just for spite’, her mother said.
For Sally the ‘bad people’ had been these investors that promised to double, triple her mother’s savings in a hot stock tip that blew their finances to smithereens for years. To the point where Sally had decided to take her own revenge on the investors and steal their money. And apparently her mother had known all about it. By how much?
“First you tell me what Sally was doing.”
Her mother shrugged. “Sally always thought she was cleverer than everyone else. She would act like we were all so petty and pathetic, especially me since I kept ending up with the same kind of guy. She always warned me that whoever I was dating would end up being a bully, or a two-timer.”
“Was that really true?”
Abby’s mother had never even brought a guy home, even after being divorced for twenty years.
“I guess you could say I had a type. That’s why I stopped dating after your father left. But then came the day Sally got taken in, by this slick banker she met at a temping job. He was all about hiding money for rich people. His favorite trick was something with trusts and off-shore accounts. And she learned just enough tricks that she thought she could do it.”
She pushed the box forward. "This will tell you exactly what your aunt did and where she went wrong."
— Von
“Sally left this in our mailbox about a month ago. I think things were going to get bad, so she did what she could.”
“Mom, I think there’s a lot more going on than you realize. Sally was mixed up with some bad people.”
Her mother looked at her sharply. “I know all about what Sally was up to, Abby. What do you know about it? Do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing for the past month?”
Abby knew she’d lost a lot of her mother’s trust over the years. All her hare-brained schemes and ‘new’ starts-in-life, each one getting put aside. But she also remembered the day she graduated from college and how proud her mother had been. The first one in the family to get a college degree. Of course Abby was going to conquer the world. She had looked the part, with her cum laude and awards. What her mother hadn’t realized was how much Abby had been going through the motions of school, that she’d maintained focus by cadging friends’ Ritalin and borrowing notes for classes that she just could not get. That she had no idea what she cared about or wanted to do.
For years she didn’t want her mother’s trust, who drained her energy and made her feel pathetic every time a start wouldn’t work out. Yet now she understood where her mother was coming from, that she didn’t want Abby to make the same mistakes with ‘bad people’. For her mother that had been her abusive, miserly husband, who’d promptly remarried and had left all of his fortune to the children of his second wife ‘just for spite’, her mother said.
For Sally the ‘bad people’ had been these investors that promised to double, triple her mother’s savings in a hot stock tip that blew their finances to smithereens for years. To the point where Sally had decided to take her own revenge on the investors and steal their money. And apparently her mother had known all about it. By how much?
“First you tell me what Sally was doing.”
Her mother shrugged. “Sally always thought she was cleverer than everyone else. She would act like we were all so petty and pathetic, especially me since I kept ending up with the same kind of guy. She always warned me that whoever I was dating would end up being a bully, or a two-timer.”
“Was that really true?”
Abby’s mother had never even brought a guy home, even after being divorced for twenty years.
“I guess you could say I had a type. That’s why I stopped dating after your father left. But then came the day Sally got taken in, by this slick banker she met at a temping job. He was all about hiding money for rich people. His favorite trick was something with trusts and off-shore accounts. And she learned just enough tricks that she thought she could do it.”
She pushed the box forward. "This will tell you exactly what your aunt did and where she went wrong."
— Von
Oh, black leather suspense! Interesting that this "chapter" (if I may call them chapters) reveals a LOT about Abby. The reader hadn't really gotten that before. I had a few blind ideas about her, but now I see! Still a fun read, even though she's back from Europe! ---Macoff
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