Margaret opened the trust documents.
“Your mother’s life insurance paid out three hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “In 2015. The trust paid your father a monthly stipend for your care. Twelve hundred dollars. From age nine until you turned eighteen. A hundred and eight months.”
She looked at me.
“A hundred and twenty-nine thousand, six hundred dollars,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
“The rest was invested,” Margaret said. “Conservatively. Index funds. As of last month, the trust balance is two hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars.”
She slid a statement across the desk.
“Plus the cabin,” she said. “And forty acres on Whitfield Ridge. Which, by the way, the county appraised at three hundred and ten thousand last year.”
I stared at the numbers.
“Your mother asked me to keep records,” Margaret said quietly. “Of how the stipend was spent. She asked me to require receipts. Annually.”
She opened another folder.
“Your father provided them,” she said. “Every year. Until 2019.”
“What happened in 2019?”
Margaret looked at me.
“Your stepmother took over the reporting,” she said. “And the receipts stopped matching.”
She slid a page across the desk.
A list.
2019: $14,400 stipend. Reported expenditures: “Clothing, school supplies, medical.” Actual: Bank records show $11,000 transferred to Sandra Maddox personal account. Purchase of 2019 Sea-Doo jet ski, Lake Dillon.
2020: $14,400 stipend. Reported: “Clothing, school, dental.” Actual: $9,200 to Tyler Maddox’s college tuition, Colorado State University.
2021: $14,400. Reported: “Food, clothing, medical.” Actual: $12,800 toward kitchen renovation, Aspen Lane property.
The kitchen renovation.
The greige.
“I’d been building a case,” Margaret said. “I was going to file in December. When you turned nineteen and had standing. But I couldn’t find you.”
She looked at me.
“And then on Saturday,” she said, “your father called me.”
I froze.
“My father?”
“Saturday night,” Margaret said. “At eleven-forty. He was crying. He said he’d done something terrible. He said he’d left you on the ridge.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“He asked me if the cabin still had the cellar,” Margaret said. “He said Laurel told him once. Years ago. About a cellar. He couldn’t remember. He asked me if there was food up there.”
She looked at me.
“I told him I didn’t know,” she said. “Harlan Pike handles the cellar. I told him I’d call Harlan.”
“Did you?”
“Harlan didn’t answer,” Margaret said. “Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. I was going to send the sheriff up this morning.”
She looked at me.
“And then you walked in,” she said.
“He called you,” I said. “Saturday night.”
“He did.”
“Why didn’t he come back? Why didn’t he drive back up and get me?”
Margaret looked at me for a long time.
“Because Sandra told him not to,” she said quietly. “He told me that too. On the phone. He said, Sandra says she’ll be fine. Sandra says she needs to learn.”
She shook her head.
“He said, Margaret, I don’t know how to say no to her.”
I went to my father’s house that afternoon.
Dr. Ruiz drove me. Margaret came too. And a sheriff’s deputy named Teresa Gomez that Margaret called.
Just to keep the peace, Margaret said.
Aspen Lane. A two-story house. Beige siding. A three-car garage. A jet ski on a trailer in the driveway under a blue tarp.
I walked up the front steps.
I rang the bell.
Sandra answered.
She was in yoga pants and a fleece. Holding a coffee mug.
She saw me.
Her face went white.
Then she saw Margaret. And Deputy Gomez.
Her face went whiter.
“Wren,” she said. “Honey. What are you—how did you—”
“I walked,” I said.
My father came up behind her.
He saw me.
He stopped.
He looked at me for a long time.
At my face. My chin. My eyes.
My mother’s chin. My mother’s eyes.
He started to cry.
“Wren,” he said. “Oh, God. Wren. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He pushed past Sandra.
He came down the steps.
He tried to hug me.
I stepped back.
He stopped.
“I need my box,” I said.
He looked at me.
“The shoebox,” I said. “Mom’s things. The photos. The tapes. The glass bird. You put it in your trunk.”
My father looked at Sandra.
Sandra looked at the ground.
“It’s in the garage,” my father said.
“Get it,” I said.
He went to get it.
Sandra stood on the front porch with her coffee mug.
She looked at Margaret.
She looked at Deputy Gomez.
She looked at the folder in Margaret’s hands.
“What is this?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Maddox,” Margaret said. “I’m Margaret Fenn. I sent you seventeen letters. Certified mail. You signed for every one.”
Sandra’s face changed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Margaret held up the folder.
“Seventeen green receipts,” she said. “Your signature. Every one.”
Sandra didn’t say anything.
“And these,” Margaret said.
She held up the bank records.
“Eleven thousand dollars,” she said. “From Wren’s trust stipend. To your personal account. In 2019. The same month you bought that jet ski.”
She nodded at the driveway.
“Nine thousand two hundred,” she said. “To your son’s tuition. Twelve thousand eight hundred. For your kitchen.”
