I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 50
A year later, Beatrice died.
The news came from her lawyer.
The funeral would be private, for family only, and the estate’s main house would be closed according to her wishes.
She left me no trust, no jewelry, no house.
The lawyer passed on only one sentence from her:
“The shelter’s independent governance clause will remain unchanged after her death.”
I sat at my desk for a long time after reading the email.
On the day Beatrice took my hand and led me out of the staff cottage, I truly had thought of her as the person who saved me.
Later, she had also tried to choose my husband, my house, and a version of happiness polished enough to look respectable.
I had been grateful to her.
I had resented her.
And in the end, we never saw each other again.
Eli came to pick me up from the library after work.
“Do you want to go to the funeral?”
“No.”
I shut down my computer.
“But I’ll remember her.”
I would remember the way she stood silent before my mother’s body.
And I would remember the moment she finally stepped back and returned the keys to the people inside the door.
Some departures do not make the past entirely right or entirely wrong.
They only remind me that life leaves no time to waste on waiting.
The rest of my father’s life belonged to prison.
Sloane took the house and money she had gotten from Graham and went somewhere no one knew me.
The last gift Graham had left behind had already turned into bus tickets that carried strangers away from Palm Beach.
And the next morning, I still opened the library doors on time.