I hurriedly tuck the photo into my purse. “I don’t think your baseball cards are in the kitchen. Let’s move along.”
We spend the next hour riffling through my dad’s house and all his things. It’s a weird feeling, being back in the place I grew up. Nothing much has changed. The furniture is still in the same place. The mail is still piled by the back door. And pictures of my mother and me still hang on the walls. Like we still live here. Like he never cut us out of his life.
I’m not sure if this breaks my heart or infuriates me. Either way, it’s an enormous contradiction to his behavior these last few years.
After we’ve ransacked all the bedrooms, Daren and I move down the hallway and into the study. The study was my father’s special place to work and think. It was his favorite room in the house and mine too.
It looks exactly the way I remember. The walls are still lined with books and the large globe I used to spin around and around as a child still stands in the corner, now coated with dust.
And of course the study still smells like smoky vanilla.
I try to ignore the burning behind my eyes as I sift through my father’s personal belongings, but it’s almost too much. The pictures. The vanilla. The lingering presence of all my happy memories.
Daren opens the top drawer of my dad’s old desk and freezes. Then he looks at me. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
I wrinkle my brow. “What?”
He pulls a stack of papers from the drawer and drops them on the desk with a thwack. Dust flurries go flying from beneath what looks like a collection of bank statements.
He clucks his tongue admonishingly. “Kayla Turner, you little fibber.”
“What are you talking about?”
He points to the top of the page where it reads KAYLA TURNER TRUST FUND in bold letters and my jaw drops.
“What?” I say in a near whisper as I scan the first few pages in disbelief. It does indeed look like I have a trust fund set up in my name. Or had a trust fund.
The statements show a series of withdrawals over the past few years, some large, some small, with the last one being two years ago. The trust fund now has a balance of zero.
Beside me, Daren lets out a quiet whistle. “Wow. You burned through that pretty fast.”
I blink rapidly, staring at the statements in complete and utter confusion. “I didn’t… I can’t…”
“In the future,” he says, scratching his cheek, “if someone asks you if you have a trust fund, the correct answer is yes. Even though yours has no more money in it. Fibber.”
I look at him. “This isn’t right.”
“Don’t get me wrong. You’re a hot fibber.” He grins. “But you’re a fibber nonetheless. Not that I blame you. My entire identity is built on fibs—”
“No. You don’t understand. I’ve never seen this before in my life.” I hold up the papers. “I never had a trust fund. Hell, I barely had a bank account. My dad must have set this up and used it himself.”
He squints at one of the pages in my hand. “Then why were all the withdrawals made in Chicago?”
He points and I follow his finger to the location details for each withdrawal. Every single one reads CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
“What? This makes no sense.” I shake my head.
He studies me. “You really didn’t know about this trust fund?”
“No! My father never mentioned it to me. Not once.”
He frowns. “Then who made all the withdrawals? Your mom?”
“I guess…”
It’s the only logical answer, but even as I stand here staring at the proof I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. My dad set up a trust fund for me, and my mother not only knew about it, but cleaned it out?
My blood begins to boil. No. There has to be a better explanation.
I gather up all the papers, even the ones left in the drawer, and wrap them in an empty file folder I find on the desk.
“I’ll sort through all this later,” I say more to myself than to Daren as I stick the folder in my purse.
He eyes me. “Are you sure?”
I nod and take a deep breath. “Let’s get back to looking for your baseball cards.”
Daren runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t think they’re here. We’ve looked pretty much everywhere.” He closes the empty desk drawer. “Let’s just go to the train station.”
Suddenly eager to leave Milly Manor and all my unnerving questions behind, I heartily agree. “Yeah. Okay.”
As we start to leave, Daren’s phone rings. He wriggles it out of his pocket, glances at the screen, and answers, “Hey, Ellen.” He listens. “Sure. I can probably run some supplies out to the inn tomorrow. What do you need?”
As he continues his conversation I run my eyes over the desk again, looking for any papers I might have missed regarding the trust fund. My eyes stop on a framed photo at the edge of the desk and I gingerly pick it up.
There are pictures all over Milly Manor, but there is only one in the study. And it’s a picture of Dad and me at the lake when I was nine years old.
We’re each holding a fishing pole and I have on the biggest grin. We didn’t actually fish that day because I thought it was mean to hurt the fishes but he went along with my tender heart and we “pretend fished” all afternoon and ate my favorite sandwiches: peanut butter and jelly with bananas.
In the picture, I’m wearing the heart-shaped locket he gave me for my birthday that year. I lost the necklace years ago, but it was always one of my favorites. My dad used to write me notes on tiny scraps of paper that said things like “I love you,” or “Have a good day,” or “I love being your daddy!” and I’d store them in that locket for safekeeping.
Then when I returned to Chicago, I wore that necklace every day knowing my father’s teeny notes were hidden in the locket. It was like having him with me everywhere I went, tucked inside the heart around my neck.
My eyes start to burn again. He wasn’t always a bad father. In fact, he was the best. Which is probably why it hurt so much when he stopped wanting to see me. And why it still hurts now.
“It seems like your dad really loved you.” Daren’s voice startles me and I blink away the emotion in my eyes. I didn’t realize he was off the phone. “He kept all your pictures up,” he continues, nodding at the photo in my hands. “You two look happy there.”
We do look happy—like a real family. A sinking feeling overwhelms me. I don’t have a family anymore. I barely had one to begin with, but now…
“That was a long time ago.” I put the picture back on the desk. “Let’s go.” Without a word, I lead Daren by the wrist out of the house I grew up in.