They Made Me the Knight, But I Became My Own Princess novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Grandpa's Letter

Molly confronts her parents with the rigged deck, then learns from her grandfather's lawyer that she owns 40% of Granger Aviation and that her father has told a court she's mentally unfit.

I ran my thumb over the notch again.

My hands were steady. That surprised me.

"Mom."

She was still stacking magazines.

"Hm?"

I laid the cards face down across the swatches, one by one.

Then I touched each notched corner and flipped it.

Princess.

Mom stopped humming.

Dad came in loosening his tie and saw the table.

Sadie was right behind him. She looked at the cards, then at Mom, and didn't look surprised at all.

"Eighteen birthdays," I said. "You marked the deck."

Mom straightened up and smoothed her skirt.

"Oh, honestly. It was a game for little girls."

"Sadie got my room because of that game. She got my place at Whitfield Prep because of that game."

"You got into college anyway, didn't you?" Mom snapped. "Sadie needed the help. She's always needed more than you."

"She's standing right there. She knew."

Sadie sniffed and slid behind Mom's shoulder.

"I didn't mark anything, Molly. Why are you being so mean on our birthday?"

Dad picked up the deck and dropped it in the wastebasket by the fireplace.

"This is what you do with the good life we gave you? Play detective with a pack of cards?"

He pointed at the stairs.

"Go to bed. You'll apologize to your sister in the morning."

I didn't apologize in the morning.

I left before anyone was up, with the four princess cards in my bag.

I'd fished them out of the wastebasket at three a.m.

My design review was at nine.

For eight months I'd been building a wing flap actuator that shed eleven percent of its weight.

I'd barely slept for the last three weeks of it.

My professor shook my hand after. "Clean work, Granger. The fellowship committee will love it."

The fellowship was two years of paid graduate study.

It was sponsored by Granger Aviation.

My father's company.

My grandfather's company, really.

He built it out of one rented hangar and a used Learjet.

When I came out of the lecture hall, an old man in a gray overcoat was waiting on the bench across the hall.

He stood up when he saw me.

"Miss Granger. Harold Pierce. I was your grandfather's lawyer."

I remembered him. He'd read the will in our dining room.

I was eighteen and they sent me upstairs before he started.

"I tried to reach you three times this year," he said. "Your mother told my office you were traveling."

"I haven't left Chicago in two years."

His mouth tightened.

He took a cream envelope from his coat.

My name was on the front in Grandpa's handwriting.

To be given to Molly on her 22nd birthday. Not before. Not to anyone else.

I sat down on the bench.

I opened it.

Molly girl,

If you're reading this, you're 22 and the shares are yours.

Forty percent of Granger Aviation. Your father can't touch them now.

I watched that card game for years. I know who deals. I'm sorry I never stopped it.

This is me stopping it.

Don't give this away. Not to anybody. Not for anything.

Love, Grandpa

I read it twice.

The hallway went on around me. Someone laughed near the vending machines.

"Forty percent," I said.

"Held in trust until yesterday," Mr. Pierce said. "Your parents were the trustees. They voted your shares at every board meeting for four years."

"They never told me."

"No."

"Everyone at dinner last night knew," I said. "Didn't they."

He didn't answer that.

He didn't have to.

"There's more, Miss Granger. And I'm afraid it's worse."

He opened a leather folder on his knee and turned it toward me.

A court filing. The seal of Cook County at the top.

Petition to extend trust. Richard Granger and Diane Granger, trustees.

Filed yesterday at 4:52 p.m.

Three hours before dinner.

"Your father is asking the court to keep control of your shares indefinitely," Mr. Pierce said.

I found the reason on the second page.

The beneficiary suffers from a longstanding mental instability and is not competent to manage her own affairs.

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