Chapter 8 - THE CHRISTMAS GIFT MY WIFE LEFT BEHIND
“Did Mommy ever wish I was different?”
Luna was still holding her little blue moth.
I felt something break inside my chest.
I sat down beside her on the living room floor.
“No, sweetheart. Never.”
She looked at me carefully.
“Not even when I talked too much about bugs?”
I smiled.
“Especially not then.”
“Sometimes Grandma says I talk too much.”
“I know.”
“Maybe Mommy would get tired too.”
I took her hand.
“Your mommy loved hearing you talk. She used to say you noticed beautiful things the rest of us walked right past.”
Luna looked toward Mara's photograph.
“She said that?”
“She did.”
I remembered Mara sitting beside Luna's crib, pointing out stars through the window.
I remembered her laughing when our daughter became fascinated with the tiny moths gathering around the porch light.
And I remembered something else.
A small wooden box in the hallway closet.
“Come with me,” I said.
Inside the box were several things I'd kept after Mara died.
A silver bracelet.
A few photographs.
Her favorite Christmas ornament.
And a folded card she'd written shortly before her final hospitalization.
I opened it carefully.
Mara had written about the kind of home she wanted Luna to grow up in.
A home where questions were welcome.
Where mistakes could be repaired.
Where nobody had to pretend to be someone else to deserve love.
I read the card aloud.
Luna listened without interrupting.
Then she touched the paper.
“Can I keep it?”
“Of course.”
She smiled.
“I'm going to put it in my observation notebook.”
I hugged her.
For the first time since the Christmas argument began, I felt certain about something.
Whatever happened to my parents' house, Luna would never have to earn her place in mine.
The following morning was Christmas Eve.
Brooks had arranged a meeting with his parents.
I didn't particularly want to attend.
But Ellen had advised me to make sure everyone involved in the proposed financing understood my ownership interest before any further paperwork was prepared.
The meeting took place in a private conference room at the Pembertons' office.
Brooks sat beside his mother, Nora, a silver-haired woman with a calm, direct manner.
His father, Richard, had brought a copy of the investment proposal.
Ainsley sat across from them.
She barely looked at me.
Nora began.
“Wesley, Brooks tells us there have been some important misunderstandings.”
“There have.”
I explained the mortgage.
The $76,400.
My ownership interest.
And the quitclaim deed my family wanted me to sign.
Richard examined the documents already included in the proposal.
Then he looked toward Ainsley.
“We were told your brother had been reimbursed.”
Ainsley swallowed.
“That was the understanding.”
“Whose understanding?” I asked.
She didn't answer.
Nora opened the presentation.
“There's another issue. We believed this project was intended to help children with significant medical and educational needs.”
I looked at Luna's photograph on the screen.
“My daughter is autistic. She isn't an illness, and she isn't a fundraising campaign.”
Nora nodded.
“I understand.”
She looked toward Ainsley.
“I taught elementary school for nineteen years before joining our family's business. I've worked with many children who learned and communicated differently.”
Ainsley looked surprised.
Nora continued.
“A welcoming educational center could be a wonderful business. But using a child's private life without permission is not acceptable.”
Ainsley's eyes filled.
“I wasn't trying to hurt anyone.”
Nora's voice remained gentle.
“Then you need to understand why what you did was hurtful.”
Richard turned to the financial projections.
“There's also an unexplained forty-five-thousand-dollar allocation.”
Brooks looked at Ainsley.
His disappointment was unmistakable.
Finally, she spoke.
“Some of it was supposed to help cover wedding commitments. I planned to replace it once the store started earning money.”
Brooks stared at her.
“Wedding commitments?”
“Deposits. The venue. Some other expenses.”
“You told me those were covered.”
“I thought they would be.”
Richard closed the folder.
“We will not proceed with this financing.”
Ainsley looked horrified.
“But Dad's business—”
“That's a separate problem,” Richard answered. “And it should never have been disguised inside this proposal.”
The meeting ended without an agreement.
As I stood to leave, Nora touched my arm.
“Wesley, I'm sorry about what happened to your daughter.”
“Thank you.”
She hesitated.
“If she ever wants to visit our children's science exhibit, Brooks can arrange a quiet morning before it opens.”
I appreciated the offer.
But this time, I wouldn't make plans for Luna without asking her.
That evening, Mom came to my house.
I'd invited her after she said she'd retrieved the account statements connected to the old household transfers.
She sat across from me at the kitchen table.
Then she placed a thick envelope beside Luna's paper Christmas tree.
“Your father doesn't know I brought these,” she said.
I opened it.
The statements showed years of transfers.
Many were for $706.
The money hadn't gone toward the mortgage.
Instead, it had entered an account controlled by Ainsley.
The transfer descriptions often included the words Family Education.
But the withdrawals told another story.
Commercial lease deposits.
Business consulting fees.
And recently, payments to a wedding venue.
Mom began crying.
“I thought we were putting money aside for the children's future.”
I turned another page.
There was a handwritten summary of the proposed financing.
Dad's business repayment.
Ainsley's business investment.
Wedding expenses.
And a planned transfer of the house's remaining family equity after the new financing was arranged.
I looked at Mom.
“Did Dad intend to give Ainsley the house?”
She lowered her eyes.
“He told me it would eventually become hers because she needed more help.”
I stared at the worksheet.
Beside the amount allocated to me was a single figure.
$0.
After four years of mortgage payments and $76,400 of Mara's life insurance money, my family had prepared a financial plan that gave me absolutely nothing.
May you like
And beside that zero, someone had written:
WESLEY'S INTEREST TO BE WAIVED BEFORE CLOSING.
