Preston looked toward Eleanor with visible confusion, because apparently the version he had heard involved my parents being unable to reach Virginia before the burial, and when Eleanor quickly told him there had been transportation problems too, I understood that my family had already rewritten history for people whose opinions mattered.
My father demanded that I unlock the chain so we could discuss private family matters properly, but I told him anything important could be said from the porch, and that was when concern finally disappeared from his face and the real reason for their visit stepped forward without disguise.
His consulting company had accumulated debt after losing two major clients, he explained, while my parents’ home carried a second mortgage, Eleanor’s wedding had grown more expensive than expected, and several relatives had financial pressures that could supposedly be solved easily without affecting my security because eighteen million dollars was more than one person needed.
For several seconds, I genuinely believed grief had damaged my hearing, because my father was standing outside the home where his dead grandchildren’s toys still occupied drawers and asking me to use money from their deaths to rescue his business and finance the birthday girl’s wedding.
Eleanor interrupted before I could answer and said she was not asking for millions, only enough to cover the venue, catering, photography, and honeymoon so our parents would not need to borrow more money, then added that Maya would have loved being a flower girl, as though invoking my daughter made the request tender.
The sound that left me was not quite a laugh and not quite a sob, and Preston stepped away from Eleanor when he saw my face, while my mother told everyone to calm down because money should never come between sisters, a remarkable statement considering money was the only reason my sister stood there.
I told them most of the settlement was already gone, and their expressions changed so quickly that even six months of grief could not prevent me from noticing, because my mother stopped crying, my father lowered his voice, and Eleanor asked what I meant by gone before asking whether I had been scammed.
I explained that the majority had been placed permanently into the Maya and Leo Safe Roads Foundation, under independent trustees and legally restricted charitable purposes, and my father stared at me as if I had announced that I had burned eighteen million dollars in the backyard simply to inconvenience him.
