Chapter 8: Her Father's Voice

I walked out of the trust officer's office with the certified pages in a folder against my chest.

My father met me in the middle of the lobby.

It was a quarter to ten on a Monday, and the bank was full.

A man in a hard hat was counting bills at the counter.

Two women in scrubs stood in the teller line.

A little boy was pulling the pen on its chain at the deposit table.

Dad did not lower his voice.

I think that was the first time I understood he did not need to.

"Good morning, Chloe," he said. "I wondered where you'd gone."

"You knew where I'd gone. You parked behind Grandma's car."

"I was worried about you."

"You were worried about the mail."

He smiled kindly at me.

Then he lifted the envelope in his hand.

"I brought you something. Let's sit down."

"I'll stand."

He opened the flap and let me see inside.

There were five one-hundred-dollar bills and a single typed sheet of paper.

"Five hundred dollars for your trouble," he said. "And a short note."

"All it says is that the trust was used to raise you, and you have no complaints."

I looked at the paper.

At the bottom was a line for my signature and a line for the date.

"No," I said.

"Chloe."

"I want the money back."

"What money?"

"Eighty-eight thousand dollars. Grandpa's. Eighty-four, and what it grew."

The man in the hard hat stopped counting.

Dad's expression did not change.

He sighed softly.

"Honey, I'm going to say this once, and I'm going to say it nicely."

"That fund is a family fund. When my father set it up, he wanted this family taken care of."

"He wrote my name on it."

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