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Part 2: Richard Collins
My mother didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Then her voice came back. Sharp. Frantic.
She said, That’s ridiculous. Your father signed it before he passed. I just dated it later.
Naomi said quietly, Mrs. Collins, the document was printed on a form our bank created two years ago. Your husband passed four years ago.
My mother stopped talking.
Then she turned on me.
She said, Avery, this is family money. Your father would have wanted me to have it. You know he would.
She said, We’re stuck at the airport in Honolulu. Our hotel cards don’t work. Brittany’s crying. Fix this. Now.
I kept my voice calm.
Mom, Dad left that money to me. In his will. You know why.
She said, I don’t care why. Unfreeze the accounts.
I can’t, I said. The bank froze them. The police are involved now.
She said, You called the police on your own mother?
I said, You emptied my house.
She hung up.
Naomi explained the rest.
The notary stamp on the witness statement belonged to a woman named Gail Porter. A notary at a shipping store across town.
When the bank called Gail, she said my mother brought in the document alone. She said my mother showed her a driver’s license for Richard Collins.
My father’s old license. It expired three years ago. Gail didn’t notice.
Naomi said, Your mother forged your signature and your father’s. That’s two counts of forgery right there.
The police officer finished his report that night. He said they would contact my mother when she landed.
I sat on my kitchen floor. There were no chairs.
At one in the morning, my phone buzzed. A text from Brittany.
Avery, I didn’t know about the forged signatures. I swear. Mom said you agreed to share the money.
I’m scared. Mom is screaming at the airline counter.
Can I call you?
Part 3: Four Years
I didn’t answer Brittany right away. I sat on the floor of my empty kitchen and let myself count.
Four years since Dad passed.
He was a high school chemistry teacher for thirty-one years. He drove the same car for fourteen years. He saved every dollar he could.
When he got sick, he called me to the hospital. Just me.
He said, Avery, I’m leaving my life insurance and savings to you. Not to your mother.
He said, She’ll spend it in a year. I’ve watched her do it my whole life. Please take care of it. And take care of your sister if she ever needs you.
Three hundred eighty thousand dollars from his life insurance. I added my own savings. Twelve years of working as an accountant.
Five hundred thousand dollars. I never spent a cent of Dad’s money. I was saving it to help Brittany through school, and to buy a house someday with a big kitchen. Like his.
Then I counted my mother.
Four years of comments about the money. You don’t even need it. Your father loved me more than you know. You stole my security.
Three times she asked for a loan. I gave her twenty thousand dollars the first time. Ten the second. She never paid it back.
The third time, I said no. That was the week she started offering to handle my mail.
Then I counted what was missing from my house.
Forty-one items on the police report. Television. Furniture. Jewelry.
And six crystal glasses. A wedding gift to my parents. Dad gave them to me the year before he passed. He said, Your mother never liked them anyway.
At eight in the morning, I texted Brittany back.
I said, Come home. Then we’ll talk.
Three days later, my doorbell rang.
It was Brittany. Alone.
She was holding my jewelry box.
Part 4: Brittany
Brittany stood on my porch. Her eyes were swollen. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
She held out my jewelry box with both hands.
She said, Everything’s in there. I checked.
I took it. I didn’t let her in yet.
She said she had flown home on a one-way ticket she bought with her own credit card. Our mother was still in Hawaii. Staying with a friend.
She said, The police called her. She’s terrified.
Then her voice changed.
She said, Avery, Mom could go to prison. She’s sixty-two. She’ll lose everything.
She said, I know what she did was wrong. But you can tell the police you won’t press charges. You can say it was a family misunderstanding.
She said, You got the money back. The bank froze it. Nobody lost anything.
Then she said the thing she had come to say.
She’s still our mother. Dad would want you to forgive her.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I knew what Dad wanted. He told me in that hospital room. Take care of your sister.
I took a slow breath.
Brittany, I said quietly, Mom forged Dad’s signature. Four years after his funeral.
Brittany flinched.
She broke into my house, I said. She took everything Dad gave me. Then she emailed me to enjoy being broke.
I’m not going to tell the police it was a misunderstanding. It wasn’t.
What happens to Mom is up to the prosecutor. Not me.
Brittany started to cry.
Then she reached into her coat pocket. She took out a small key on a ring.
She said, quietly, The rest of your things are in a storage unit. Mom rented it two weeks ago.
She said, And Avery, there’s something else.
Mom didn’t want the money for Hawaii.
She owes two hundred thousand dollars to a casino in Atlantic City. She’s been hiding it for six years. Since before Dad got sick.
Part 5: The Crystal Glasses
I stared at my sister.
Brittany said, I found the letters last month. Collections notices. A lawsuit. She was going to lose her house.
She said, She told me Dad knew. She said that’s why he left the money to you.
I sat down on my porch steps. Brittany sat beside me.
So that’s what Dad meant. She’ll spend it in a year. I’ve watched her do it my whole life.
He was protecting the money from the casino. Not from her love.
The police recovered everything from the storage unit the next day. Forty-one items. The television. The furniture. My jewelry.
The crystal glasses were wrapped in newspaper in a cardboard box. Not one was broken.
My mother came home two weeks later. She was arrested at the airport.
She was charged with forgery, identity theft, and burglary. Her lawyer asked for a plea agreement. She accepted.
She was sentenced to probation, restitution for the damaged lock, and a court-ordered gambling treatment program.
Brittany testified. So did I.
My mother didn’t look at me in court. Not once.
Six months later, she wrote me a letter. From her treatment program.
She said she had been gambling since before I was born. She said Dad tried to help her for thirty years. She said he made her promise, before he died, to get help. She never did.
She said, I took everything from you because I couldn’t face losing everything myself. I’m so sorry.
I haven’t answered yet. Maybe someday.
Brittany moved in with me that fall. I’m paying for her last two years of nursing school. With Dad’s money.
Just like he asked.
Last month, I finally bought a house. A small one, with a big kitchen. Like Dad’s.
On the first night, Brittany and I sat at the kitchen table. I unwrapped the crystal glasses one by one.
I poured sparkling cider into two of them.
Brittany held hers up to the light. She said, These were Mom and Dad’s.
I said, Dad gave them to me. He said Mom never liked them anyway.
Brittany laughed through her tears.
We raised our glasses.
To Dad, Brittany said. Who knew exactly what he was doing.
To Dad, I said.
And for the first time in a long time, the house didn’t feel empty at all.
