at the small metal box now sitting openly on a shelf instead of hidden at the back of a closet. “Now I worry about what kind of person I leave behind.”
I asked what she meant. She smiled, a real smile.
“I’m changing the trust.”
I knew immediately she was serious. She didn’t give everything to charity, in the end, the way she’d apparently once considered. She didn’t leave everything to me either, something I want to be honest I’d half expected given everything Mr. Grant had implied at the airport.
Instead, she created a scholarship fund in Grandpa’s name for students studying mechanical engineering, the field he’d built his whole career in. She set aside money specifically for her grandchildren’s education, mine and my cousins’ both, regardless of what had happened with their
parents. She established a small fund for elderly people who had been financially exploited by relatives, working with a local nonprofit to structure it properly. And she kept enough for herself. Enough to travel. Enough to garden exactly the way she wanted, without asking anyone’s permission first. Enough to live entirely on her own terms.
