Chapter 1 - I PRESSED SEND
My thumb touched the blue arrow.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the screenshot appeared in the family Christmas chat.
COLLEGE SAVINGS FOR OLIVIA ONLY.
Account balance five years earlier:
$68,420.
Current balance:
$0.
Withdrawal authorization:
MARGARET BENNETT.
OLIVIA BENNETT.
Except I had never authorized it.
Underneath, I typed:
Mom has reminded me for years that she “paid for my future.” I found this account today. I left college after one semester because I was told there was no money left. I did not sign this withdrawal.
Then I sent that too.
My mother stopped talking.
I could hear her breathing on the phone.
“Olivia.”
Her tone had changed.
Not angry anymore.
Afraid.
“What did you do?”
“I asked a question.”
“You humiliated me in front of the family.”
“You’ve told the family for years you financed my college.”
“I did!”
“No. Apparently somebody financed it. I’m trying to find out where the money went.”
Messages flooded the group.
Uncle James:
Margaret, what is this?
Aunt Denise:
Liv, are you saying the signature isn’t yours?
Grandma:
Call me.
Then Ryan entered the chat.
OLIVIA DELETE THAT NOW.
I stared at the message.
Not:
What happened?
Not:
Are you okay?
Delete it.
My mother whispered:
“You don’t understand what was happening then.”
“Explain.”
“Your father’s business was collapsing.”
“And?”
“We were about to lose everything.”
“So you took my college money?”
“It was family money.”
The words hit harder than expected.
The document literally said otherwise.
“Why is my signature on it?”
Silence.
Then:
“I don’t remember.”
I laughed once.
“That’s convenient.”
She started crying.
Real tears.
Maybe.
“I was trying to keep this family together.”
I looked around my apartment.
The Christmas lights I had hung myself.
The folding table already covered with grocery lists.
Grandma’s spare blanket on the couch.
I had spent years keeping the family together too.
Nobody had needed to forge Ryan’s signature to make that happen.
Then Grandma called.
I answered immediately.
Her voice was shaking.
“Olivia, your mother didn’t open that account.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Your grandfather did.”
Grandpa had died when I was fourteen.
Grandma continued:
“He put seventy-five thousand dollars aside for you and seventy-five thousand for Ryan.”
My stomach dropped.
“Ryan had one too?”
“Yes.”
“Where is his?”
Grandma went silent.
Then whispered:
May you like
“His was empty before yours.”
Whatever my mother had done with my college fund had apparently happened only after someone had already spent my brother’s.
