The Daughter They Abandoned Is the Doctor They Can't Reach novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Beneficiary
Ingrid sees the email moving her college fund to her cousin, watches her parents hand Faye a new laptop and quietly submits eleven applications from the library; at breakfast her mother says they'll add Dad's name to her bank account and Ingrid says no.
The email on my father's laptop said the beneficiary of the Sandvik College Fund had been changed from me to my cousin.
It was dated November 3.
It was now the seventeenth, and nobody had told me.
I had come into the kitchen only to print a form.
I read the email twice while the printer hummed behind me.
My mother came in from the hall with her phone raised, ready to photograph something for the family group chat.
My father came in behind her.
They saw me and they saw the screen.
Neither of them looked bothered.
"Faye has had a hard year," my father said, and squeezed my shoulder. "I want her to feel at home here."
"And you've always landed on your feet," my mother said. "You'll manage."
They both smiled when they said it.
Faye stood at the end of the counter with a plate of apple slices.
She had lived with us for fourteen months, since my aunt died.
She set the plate down very gently and looked at the floor.
I said nothing.
In those fourteen months I had learned that anything I said turned into "Ingrid is picking on an orphan."
So I closed the laptop and went upstairs.
My study had become Faye's studio that spring.
My desk had been pushed into the corner of my bedroom to make room for her easel.
Faye needed therapy, and my parents paid without a second thought.
Faye wanted tennis lessons, and they hired the most expensive coach in Dayton.
When I asked for an SAT prep course, my father said the budget was tight this year.
I turned eighteen on October 9, and my parents forgot, because they were driving Faye to tour colleges.
That afternoon I took my ID to a credit union across town, not the one where my father works.
I opened a checking account and a savings account, and I was the only one who knew the passwords.
My first paycheck from Kroll's Books went into the savings, and my boss Mabel asked no questions about why I took every extra shift.
I told nobody what it was for.
On Thursday my laptop started flickering, bright and black and bright again.
I held the edge of the screen down and read my application checklist between flashes.
"Mom, this laptop is about to die."
She leaned out of the kitchen and glanced at it.
"After the holiday sales. We'll look then."
She had said that in the spring, and again in the summer.
In the living room Faye was unboxing a new MacBook Pro, with a drawing tablet beside it.
"She needs real equipment for her art portfolio," my mother said.
Faye held the laptop in both hands.
"This is too much, Aunt Gwen," she said. "Ingrid still doesn't have a working computer."
"Hers only needs the cable reseated," my father said. "It turns on fine."
"If you're in a hurry, you can use mine," Faye told me.
"Thanks, but I'm okay."
It was a kind offer, and I could not tell whether she knew where the money had come from.
At dinner my father had a dozen tabs open about Faye's application essay.
My mother said the first line was too plain for admissions readers.
My father said Faye should open with the funeral, and how painting had saved her.
"Uncle Dennis, wouldn't that look like I'm using my mom?" Faye asked quietly.
"You're honoring her," my mother said, and took her hand.
Nobody asked how my own applications were going.
When they paused, I held out my form.
"The fee waivers want proof of our household income. I need last year's tax return and your signature."
"Put it on the table," my father said, without looking up.
"Ingrid, can it wait?" my mother said. "We're in the middle of something, and you always pick these moments."
I laid the form on the sideboard.
"Okay," I said.
Later I went into the study to find the tax folder myself.
The bottom drawer held no tax returns.
It held one blue folder with Faye's name on the front, full of labeled pages.
A bank envelope addressed to her had been opened and taped shut again.
I did not touch it.
The next day my counselor read my form and asked nothing about my parents.
She pulled up the College Board policy.
"In your situation the school can verify your income," she said. "You don't need their signature."
She turned her monitor so I could see which buttons to click.
That night my form was still on the sideboard, with a dozen printed pages of Faye's essay on top of it.
My father had gone through them in red pen.
At the bottom he had written: Lean harder on how this family gave you a second chance.
I slid my own form out from underneath, and nobody noticed.
For the next week I used the library computers after school.
I submitted eleven applications with a fee-waiver code.
The laptop could flicker all it liked, and the form could sit there until spring.
That was when I knew I would have to leave.
On Monday morning my mother set down her coffee and smiled at me.
"I found that credit union letter in your room, honey. We'll just add Dad's name to the account, for safety."
I buttered my toast.
"No," I said.
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