Page 4 of Something Forever

“Well, your inheritance is… significant.”

“Significant?” I say, squinting. “How much?”

“One million dollars.”

My jaw hits the floor. “Did you… ” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Did you just say a million dollars?”

“That’s correct.”

My breathing increases, black spots starting to appear in the corner of my vision. “Is this some kind of prank? Is Abbi behind this?”

“I assure you, Ms. Rhodes, this is no prank.”

“What… how… I don’t understand.”

“There’s also the slight issue of the amendment clause to the inheritance.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “What do you mean, amendment clause?”

“Well, it’s stipulated that the inheritance be paid out in three parts,” the attorney says plainly, “the first upon your marriage.”

A burst of laughter escapes from me. “I’m sorry. I thought you said ‘marriage’?”

Trent pauses on the other line. “I did. In order to receive the first part of the inheritance, you must be married. The second and third are paid upon the subsequent years of marriage.”

My brain just… breaks. There are no thoughts inside of it. No words on my tongue. Zero.

“Ms. Rhodes? Are you still there?”

“Sorry. Um, yes, I’m here,” I say, dragged back to earth. “So, not only do I have a grandmother I knew nothing about, but she’s also left me a million dollars, but only if I’m married, and only if I stay married for… ”

“Three years at least.”

Brain. Cannot. Compute.

Trent sucks in a breath. “I’ll just… email you the details. You give me a call back if you have any questions. I’ll be available.”

Words. Where are words?

“Nice speaking to you, and I am very sorry for your loss. Goodbye, Ms. Rhodes.”

Trent hangs up, and I set the phone down on the counter.

I can’t believe this. Agnes Rhodes. I’ve never once heard that name before. Eighteen years of raising me, and my mom never mentioned her own mother. How is that even possible?

My blood boiling, I try to take in a few deep breaths to calm my panic. My first thought is that my grandparents must have done something terrible for my mom to remove them from our lives completely. After all, she wouldn’t have cast them aside for no reason. But another thought crystallizes and hardens inside me, remembering the nights we scraped together the last of her tips from the diner to buy frozen pizzas. How I’d hustle the drunks at the local bar into thinking I couldn’t play pool and smirk at their shocked glares as they reluctantly handed over twenty-dollar bills. I’d run home with my winnings in my pockets, and we’d use the money to fill the gas tank so we could make it to a new town and do it all over again. Days and nights on the wide open road. Untethered, clinging to each other, parent and child merged into one.

We had nothing.

There were times I didn’t understand it, our nomadic existence. Whenever we’d settle somewhere, I’d be the new girl at school, struggling to make friends. It was as if my peers could tell I didn’t belong in their world of pleated skirts and study dates. Just as I’d start to finally feel like maybe I could fit in, we’d be on the road again, headed somewhere new. I’d beg my mother to tell me why we had to go — why we couldn’t stay in any of the places we’d been to.

“We’re not meant for there, peanut. How much better is this? Just the two of us, completely free.”

I didn’t feel free. I felt lost. By the time I turned sixteen, I was as different from my mother as I could possibly be. I wrinkled my nose at her cigarettes and beers that I used to think were cool. She’d remind me of my scheming days at those dive bars, and I’d curl my lip in anger, frustrated that she’d roped me into her lifestyle from day one. I wanted nothing more than to settle down somewhere, to have a normal teenage life. Instead, I floated, belonging nowhere, finding nobody. I was desperate to go to college, despite my mother telling me over and over that I didn’t need that to have a good life.

Resentment churns in my gut at how things might have been different. That whole time, I had two grandparents living in New Haven, probably in a classic New England style mansion; while we’d been scraping pennies together at a rest stop in the middle of Iowa, they’d been scraping their silverware against their finest china.

I know I should call my mom, but I can’t. I’m too angry and shaken right now. I’ll end up saying something I regret. I’ll probably announce that I’m unemployed, and she’ll try to convince me to go on some wild adventure with her. She’s the only family I’ve ever had, but sometimes I just don’t understand her. I think we’re just too different. Maybe if I were more carefree, more like her, it would have worked, but I’m just not. I’m particular and anxious and I like my comforts. The life that I’m building for myself is the type of life that I always wanted — stable, ordered, and 100% mine.

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