I cried for a week.
Then I stopped writing.
I was sixteen. I believed her. Why wouldn’t I believe my own mother?
When I was eighteen, I got into Boston College.
I’d worked so hard for it. I’d studied in that freezing attic with a space heater I bought with my own babysitting money. When I opened the acceptance email, I ran down two flights of stairs screaming.
Then Dad sat me down at the kitchen table.
“The college fund is gone,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Grandpa set that up for me. When I was born. He told me. He said there was enough for any school I wanted.”
“There was,” Dad said. “But the market’s been bad. And your grandfather’s care is expensive. Briar Glen costs twelve thousand dollars a month, Emma. Somebody has to pay for that.”
“But Grandpa has money. He sold the company.”
