PATIENCE
She thinks it’s over. She’s been tiptoeing, waiting for me to rage and scream. To demand answers. To erupt. And now, after a two-minute conversation, she thinks the time for that has passed.
But it’s not over.
My way is quieter. More fitting of an Invisible Queen.
VOID
Before I paid it a second visit this morning, the box under her bed contained more than just the geocoordinates. There were other numbers in there, too. Mother will discover their absence soon. Her folding, sorting, and packing should lead her there within the hour.
“I’m going for a walk,” I call as I’m already halfway out the door. It’s better if I’m not there when she finds what I’ve done.
REVERSAL
The photo jumped into my thoughts last night as I drifted off to sleep. So did a memory of Mother complaining about it during an afternoon visit to Father’s office years ago. The memories were gifts from my subconscious, I think. Peace offerings from my troubled mind.
“Darling, really?” Mother had sighed as she plucked the photo from his desk. “This is hardly the best picture of us from our wedding. I look cross-eyed, and your hair looks a little thin from this angle, don’t you think?” She’d reached over to fluff his hair playfully.
Father pulled her into his lap, spinning them around in his chair and making her shriek with laughter. An aide walked out, frowning his disapproval. My parents didn’t care. For all their crimes, they did at least love one another.
“Someday, when we’re old and wrinkled, my dear, you will look at this picture very differently. Your crossed eyes and my bald spot won’t matter a bit to you then.” He eased her from his lap with a kiss, then glanced at his watch. He was late for a meeting; it was time for us to go.
It was a touching moment, perhaps. But I know my mother’s vanity. Choosing that photo, of all the more flattering photos she could have brought with her, made little sense. And I was quite certain the picture, in that ugly, distinctive frame, had always sat in Father’s office, so how could she have it here with her now? When we’d had only minutes to grab what few possessions we could from our home? And why was it hidden under her bed, instead of displayed somewhere?
My father’s words took on new importance in my sleep-fogged thoughts, and my brain began to tease apart the mystery. Someday you will look at this picture very differently.
He’d been under house arrest those last few days. I didn’t know that until I read about it here. Not that it mattered much—as crafty as he was, I have no doubt he’d found some way to arrange for sensitive documents and important personal effects to be brought to him at home. The week before he died had been full of nervous visits from anxious men. Did one of them bring the picture as one last favor?
Why?
There was only one way to know. So this morning, while Mother showered and Bastien slept, I pulled the photo from the box.
Pulled the picture from the frame.
And studied the writing, my father’s cramped and slanted scrawl, on the back.
* * *
Four.
It’s the number of bank accounts in exotic destinations. Macao, which I’d never heard of. The Cayman Islands, where my parents vacationed once. Belize. They’d traveled there, too. Andorra. Duty-free shopping, Mother used to claim of her frequent visits. The internet connects the dots for me, tells me what these places have in common: offshore banking.
On the back of my mother’s cross-eyed wedding-day face are routing numbers and passwords. Wiring instructions and sums. Dollar signs. Pounds.
Hundreds.
It’s the number of years we could live like royalty if the account balances in Father’s handwriting are true.
Contact information for three shell companies and two law firms completes the list. Important numbers, indeed. I don’t know why Mother hasn’t called them yet. I don’t have all of the puzzle pieces.
Perhaps she was waiting until she thought no one was looking. A treasure this grand would certainly be worth suffering through a few months of empty cupboards.
But she waited too long.
The frame sits empty now in the box beneath the bed. The picture of my parents smiling in better days—even without the numbers on the back, it would be far too valuable a thing to risk losing. I fold it small and tuck it into my bra. I need to feel it against my skin.
Now I control the money.
I control the outcome.
I’ve learned my lessons well. I won’t be betrayed again.