The first birthday when no card arrived.
The first year Grandma placed the deposit slip inside mine.
I had always thought of the savings as proof that Grandma believed I could build a life beyond our circumstances.
Now they were also proof that someone had entered that life quietly and taken what she could.
At nine the next morning, Mr. Ellis called.
“I reviewed the preliminary records,” he said. “There are two things you need to know before you meet your mother.”
“What?”
“First, the account was originally opened under a custodial arrangement. When you turned eighteen, it should have been transferred entirely into your control.”
“Should have been?”
“The transfer appears to have been delayed.”
“Why?”
“I’m still investigating. But there was a form submitted when you were seventeen requesting that the account remain under the existing management structure until your twenty-first birthday.”
“Who signed it?”
“I don’t know yet. The signature is being examined.”
My pulse began to race.
“Could it be Grandma?”
“It could. But there’s another issue.”
“What?”
“There was a second account.”
I sat upright.
“What second account?”
“One connected to your grandmother’s name and your Social Security number. It was closed two years ago.”
“Did Mom withdraw that too?”
“We don’t know. The records are incomplete.”
“Why didn’t the bank tell me?”
“Because the account was not listed in the same system as the birthday fund. It may have been a separate savings certificate.”
I pressed my fingers to my forehead.
“How much was in it?”
Mr. Ellis paused.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
I looked around Grandma’s living room.
The house was still full of her. Her knitted blanket lay folded over the armchair. A ceramic bowl held unopened mail beside the lamp. Her reading glasses rested on a book, the pages marked by a receipt from the grocery store.
Nothing had moved since the funeral except the things I had packed for donation.
“Did Grandma know about the second account?” I asked.
“She opened it.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe she intended to. Maybe she wanted to leave it with the rest of your inheritance. Or perhaps she didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“Mom knew.”
“I’m not certain of that.”
“But she said she was there when Grandma signed papers.”
“That doesn’t mean she knew about every account.”
