I sat in the wooden chair.
For years, I had believed Douglas stayed away because I meant too little.
Perhaps he had stayed away because I meant too much.
Lucas opened the last folder.
“This might be what your mother meant.”
Inside was a legal document, older than the estate papers. It concerned a bank account established in 1987, with Douglas’s mother listed as trustee and my mother named as beneficiary.
I read the account details twice.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know.”
The attached note explained that money from the sale of a property had been placed in the account to fund a cottage renovation and future education expenses for “the children of both families.”
There were no names.
But the account had been closed in 1998.
A handwritten receipt showed that the remaining funds had been donated to a local scholarship in Andrew’s name.
“She used the money for a scholarship,” Lucas said.
