“I will. But try to understand—two thousand dollars . . . it’s a lot.”
“I know, but look at you two. You just bought a big house in a nice neighborhood. I’m sure you can manage it.”
Amy hated this tendency in her mother—to ask for a favor and then make it seem like it would be selfish and cruel of Amy not to help. Whether it was helping Tim with a science project in middle school (“It’s not like you have to think about it—you’ve already taken that class so you know what the teacher is looking for.”) or shuttling Tim and his friends to and from parties in high school (“You don’t have any plans anyway.”), her mother didn’t so much ask for favors as expect them. It’s not that Amy minded helping. She loved to lend a hand and knew her mom was stretched thin. But as she’d gotten older, the requests had become more monetary—and more substantial—and she hated the guilt that came along with knowing someday, she truly might not be able to help.
“Things are just a little tight right now,” Amy said as she ushered Noah into the house. She opened the lid to their wall-mounted mailbox and pulled out a bundle of mail from inside. The postman had come sometime while she was picking up Noah.
“Tight? Maybe you should come stay with me for a while. Then you’ll know tight.”
Amy sighed as she dumped the mail on the kitchen counter and began to sort through it. She’d regretted using that word as soon as it had slipped out, but there was no taking it back now. Her mom was right: What she and Rob considered a precarious financial position would be total comfort, if not opulence, for her family. But there was no comparing the two lifestyles. What was a suitable income and savings level for her mom—a single woman in Woonsocket—wasn’t even close to what Rob and Amy needed for a family of three in a middle-class Mid-Atlantic suburb.
Amy opened their latest PECO bill and took a deep breath. She still hadn’t gotten used to paying the electric bill for an entire house. They could manage it, but in light of the conversation about finances, she couldn’t help but hold her breath.
“Hello?”
Amy let out the air in a gust. “Sorry. I was just checking . . . Never mind. I will talk to Rob tonight. Okay?”
“Thank you. Like I said, Timmy is doing really great. This program is much better.”
“Glad to hear that. Is he happy with it?”
“He hasn’t really wanted to talk about it. He’s embarrassed.”
“Why? It’s not like you’re judging him.”
“It’s hard for him to understand that when everyone else is.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, really? His big sister with her successful husband and adorable son and wonderful life? How do you think that makes him feel? You think he likes being the fuckup?”
“I just meant—”
“This is hard, okay? Hard for both of us.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Mommy, who are you talking to?” Noah whined.
Amy covered the phone. “Mimi.”
“I want to talk, I want to talk!” Noah jumped up and down.
“In a second.”
“No, I want to talk now.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Mom? Noah wants to say hi.”
“Then put him on! I can’t say no to my only grandchild.”
Amy handed Noah the phone and continued opening the mail. She marveled at Noah’s ability to change her mother’s mood. Ellen hadn’t been a particularly warm and fuzzy mother to Amy, but to Noah, she was all joy, all the time. Amy supposed she’d be all joy, all the time, too, if she didn’t have to deal with tantrums and discipline and mealtimes and endless laundry. But her mom had done plenty of that with Amy and Timmy. She’d put in her time. Now she got to enjoy the fun bits. Being a grandparent sounded excellent.
Amy tore through letter after letter—the usual bills, forwarded mail from Washington, credit card solicitations—when she opened a bank statement from Wells Fargo.
Dear Mr. Durant,
We are writing to inform you that the assets in the Lloyd F. Sterling Trust for the Benefit of Ethan James Durant have fallen below the $50,000 set threshold as stipulated in the trust agreement. Please be advised that the trust holdings are currently valued at $500.
Amy felt her stomach drop as she flipped over the envelope. It was addressed to Julian. She hadn’t even noticed. She and Rob used Wells Fargo, too, and she’d assumed it was meant for them. Her eyes flashed back to the letter as its contents sunk in. Ethan had a trust fund, and someone had drained it. Julian? It had to be. If he was receiving the letter, he was obviously the trustee. But what had he done with the money? And did Grace know?
“Mimi says goodbye!” shouted Noah, startling Amy out of her trance.
“Tell her I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Amy said, even though, at the moment, her mother’s financial problems weren’t the ones that concerned her.
* * *
“What am I supposed to do?”
Amy fiddled with the stem of her wineglass as Rob finished chewing a mouthful of chicken. They’d decided to eat dinner after Noah went to bed, so that they could discuss things they didn’t want him hearing. Amy had led with the letter from Wells Fargo instead of her mother’s financial request.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Rob said. “It isn’t really our business.”
“True. But Noah worships Ethan. This was supposed to be his money, and now Julian has stolen it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He is the trustee.”
“So? Maybe Lloyd F. Sterling—whoever he is—gave Julian permission.”
“I think Lloyd is Grace’s dad. Her parents have a guesthouse.”
“Guesthouses and trust funds. Wouldn’t it be nice?” Rob sighed.
“It just seems fishy to me, after all of the other mail we’ve gotten for Julian. The Durants are obviously in some sort of financial trouble, and all of the threatening mail comes in his name.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Mail comes for me all the time, but that doesn’t stop you from opening it.”
“True.” She swirled her wineglass. “So you think Grace knows?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe she’s in on it. Maybe they’re running some sort of scam together or something.”
“Slow down, tiger,” Rob said. “It could be totally innocent.”
“You don’t usually drain a trust fund when everything is hunky-dory.”
“You’re an expert on trusts now?”
Amy clenched her jaw. Why wasn’t Rob backing her up on this? He took her side on almost everything—not merely to keep the peace but because they were of the same mind on most issues.
“No, but you aren’t either. And you’ve been saying from the beginning that something smells off.”
Rob took a deep breath. “I have. And I still think that. But I just . . .”
“You just what?”
“I worry about Noah. Ethan is his best friend—frankly the only real friend he’s ever had. Haven’t you seen the change in him since we moved here?”
“Of course I have.”
“Right. So I’m hesitant to make wild accusations about his best friend’s parents.”
“I’m not making wild accusations.”
“You’re basically saying they’ve drained their kid’s trust fund to finance a shady criminal enterprise.”
“I never said that!”
Rob smiled. “Have I told you how sexy you are when you get indignant?”
She kicked him playfully under the table. “You’re not getting sex tonight, so you can stop that right now.”
“Because I won’t agree with you about this?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “I actually have my period, so it was never going to happen. It just sounded good.”
Rob laughed as he wiped the corners of his mouth. He leaned his elbows on the table and sighed. “Listen, you’re probably right. There is almost definitely something shady going on with the Durants, or at the very
least Julian. But at this point, I honestly don’t see what we can do about it. Frankly, we shouldn’t even know about the trust fund. You committed mail fraud by even opening it.”
“But I thought it was for us! I didn’t read the name on the envelope!”
“I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know if that excuse would hold up.” His eyes wandered to the letter, which Amy had laid on the table. “You should probably throw it out.”
“Throw it out?”
He nodded. “Lloyd F. Sterling’s lawyer will get a copy of this letter, too, so eventually, if he doesn’t know already, he will. And, Grace . . . well, if she doesn’t know, she’ll probably eventually find out, too. It isn’t your job to tell her.”
“But we see each other all the time.”
“So? It’s not as if you’re super close. You really only see her on playdates at this point. You’re not best friends or anything.”
“I know, but . . .”
Amy didn’t finish the sentence, which was: But I want us to become friends. She wasn’t exactly sure why. Actually, she was: She was lonely, and Grace was cool, beautiful, and worldly. Who wouldn’t want to befriend someone like that? But Rob was right. They weren’t best friends, at least not yet, and so she had no responsibility to pass along the information in the letter. She reached for it and took a deep breath as she read through it one last time. Then she crumpled it up, walked over to the recycling bin, and tossed it inside.
“Anyway,” Rob said, “wasn’t there something else you wanted to discuss? You said there were two things.”
“Oh, right,” Amy said, feeling her stomach sour. “We need to make a decision about my mother.”
Chapter 6
Amy spent all of Friday morning dreading the playdate with Grace and Ethan. She kept mentioning to Noah that her stomach hurt (which was true—her stomach always ached when she got nervous), hoping to lay the groundwork for an eventual cancellation. But when she saw how excited he was about seeing Wissahickon Valley Park’s Forbidden Drive, she didn’t have the heart to disappoint him.
“Are you packing lunch again?” he asked as she dabbed concealer beneath her eyes.
“No, Grace says there is a little café where we can buy lunch.”
Noah looked skeptical. “What kind of café?”
“I don’t know, a regular café. They sell sandwiches and salads and stuff like that.”
“I don’t like salad.”
Grace sighed. “Then don’t order one.”
“But what if everything has nuts in it?”
“Everything won’t have nuts in it.”
“But what if it does?”
Amy clenched her jaw and turned, ready to shout at Noah until she saw the expression on his face. He was worried. He thought they were going to eat somewhere that would kill his friend.
“Ethan’s mommy is the one who suggested the place, so I’m sure it’s fine. They’ve been there before, and he has been able to find something to eat.”
Noah hesitated. “Okay.”
“Just let me finish putting on a little makeup and then we can go.”
Noah sidled up behind her and watched as she swept a little blush across her cheeks. “Why do you wear makeup?”
She shrugged. “To look pretty.”
“But you already look pretty.”
She looked back at him and smiled. “Thanks, sweetie.”
She took out her mascara and swept it across her lashes. Did she really need it? She thought so, but then she always found herself questioning her looks before meeting up with Grace, who was so naturally beautiful she didn’t seem to require makeup of any kind. She wasn’t comparing herself to Grace . . . okay, so maybe she was. But it was hard not to. Grace had such effortless style that Amy couldn’t help but feel dowdy next to her. Some days she felt as if she were in high school again, trying to keep up with the popular girls, except this time one of the popular girls actually wanted to hang out with her.
She threw on a coat of lip gloss, threw her hair in a ponytail, and grabbed her sandals. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They hopped in the car and wove their way through the suburbs until they reached the Forbidden Drive, a seven-mile crushed gravel trail along the Wissahickon Creek. Amy parked on the outskirts of the park and, holding Noah’s hand, made her way across the street and through the barrier beyond, which cars were not allowed to travel. In the distance, she saw the Cedars House Café, a butter-yellow cottage nestled among the trees, set back from the gravel path. As they got closer, Amy saw Ethan running around one of the picnic benches situated outside.
“Ethan!”
Noah let go of Amy’s hand and bolted toward the picnic table.
“Noah, slow down—”
But as the words came out of her mouth, he tripped on a rock and came crashing down. He let out a piercing wail.
“Shit,” Amy muttered under her breath as she took off toward him. Please say he hasn’t lost a tooth.
She lifted him up and brushed his hair off his forehead. “Oh, sweetie.” His nose was bleeding—rather a lot—and his knees and hands were pretty scraped up, but he still seemed to have all of his teeth, and he didn’t have any cuts on his face.
“I-I . . . n-n-need . . . s-s-some . . . iiiiice,” he howled.
Amy kissed his forehead. “I’m sure the café has ice. Let’s go.”
She stood up just as Grace and Ethan came to join them.
“That looked like a nasty spill,” Grace said.
“He’s okay, aren’t you, buddy?”
He sniffled and nodded as the blood trickled down his nose. Her heart broke for him a little. He’d shown so much enthusiasm for his friend. To them it probably looked like he got so excited that he was, quite literally, tripping over himself. They didn’t seem to mind, but Noah was a lot like she was as a kid—sensitive, worried about being judged. Some of his tears were probably more to do with his embarrassment over tripping in front of a friend than from the injury itself. Amy remembered bashing her nose on the blacktop at recess one day when she was about ten, and although the resulting gash and swelling hurt, the stares from her classmates hurt a lot more.
“I told him the café would have ice,” Amy said.
“Oh, definitely,” said Grace. “Come on, let’s patch you up. The café also has some pretty amazing cookies, which I hear can heal boo-boos like that.” She snapped her fingers.
Noah looked up at Amy, unsure of her position of a cookie before lunch, but his uncertainty morphed into something resembling a smile as Amy nodded gently. She handed him a tissue and showed him how to hold his nose to stop the bleeding.
They went inside, and the cashier made up a small baggy of ice for Noah. She handed him a malted chocolate chip cookie. “On the house,” she said.
“Oh, no, I insist,” Amy said, holding out two dollars.
“Honestly, it’s fine. Poor kid. Look at him.”
Amy looked down at Noah. His nose had swollen, and his upper lip was caked in dried blood. Her son would always be gorgeous to her no matter what, but at the moment, even she had to admit he looked pretty bad.
He scarfed down the cookie, and in no time he started to seem like himself again.
“Shall we go for a little walk before we come back for lunch?” Grace suggested.
“Works for us,” Amy said.
The group headed out, and before long the boys were chasing each other down the trail, weaving around puddles and piles of horse manure.
“Noah, be careful!” Amy shouted. “Please don’t trip again.”
He slowed down, only slightly, and gave her a puckish smile.
“It’s not like he gave himself a bloody nose fifteen minutes ago or anything,” she groaned, shaking her head.
“Typical boy behavior,” Grace said. “Ethan is the same way.”
It was the first time in a long time that anyone had referred to Noah as “typical.” Amy found it refreshing.
“So how are things wit
h you guys?” Grace asked.
“Pretty good. . . .” Amy said. Her stomach tingled. I did get an interesting letter about Ethan’s trust. . . .
“Yeah? Doesn’t sound that way. Everything okay with you and Rob?”
“Me and Rob?” Amy tried not to sound too taken aback by the question. It was so . . . personal. They talked kids and houses and schedules, but not marriage. It’s not that Amy didn’t want to talk about those things. Frankly she was eager for a friend with whom she could share personal and private details, and she really liked Grace. But their friendship was still in the early stages, so the question caught her by surprise.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—I just thought . . . moves can be stressful, and they can put a lot of pressure on relationships. And you said your work wasn’t going that great due to the move, so I figured maybe . . .” She waved her hand. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s fine. Things with Rob and I are great. I mean, you know, there’s the usual stuff with couples who have been married for nearly ten years, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You guys have been married almost ten years?”
“Nine this September.”
“Wow. Next year is a big one. Any fun plans in the works?”
“For next year? Uh, no. We haven’t even figured out what we’re doing this year.”
“You should go to Vetri.”
“This year?” From what Amy had heard, Vetri was one of the best restaurants in the country, but it was also more than $150 a head, and that didn’t include wine.
“No, for your tenth. Though I guess if you can afford it for your ninth—”
“We can’t.”
Grace smiled. “It’s amazing. Julian and I went in February for our fifth anniversary. Best meal of my life.”
“We will have to check it out. Sounds perfect for a milestone anniversary.” Amy found it a little odd that Grace and Julian were able to afford what was probably a $400 dinner when (from what Amy had seen) they couldn’t pay some of their bills and, apparently, had all but liquidated their son’s trust fund. But then she couldn’t very well ask about any of that.
The Last House on Sycamore Street Page 6