Page 15 of Saltwater

Every day she went from her father’s house to the bakery, to her painting studio, and back. She had a driver. There were no stops in between. I suspected they turned a blind eye to her spending more time with me because I had already signed an NDA. I was a managed risk.

But the risk they hadn’t managed was Helen. At first, she only asked casually if there was anything at her uncle’s office about her mother. The question felt curious, not like an interrogation. We’d known each other for almost a year and a half, she had begun to trustme.

“Not about her death,” she added quickly. “Just about—her.”

“I haven’t looked,” I said.

It was a lie. There were dozens of files on Sarah. Someone, probably Marcus, had saved copies of every play, every scrap of correspondence that turned up following her death. There were reviews of her work, college transcripts, financial statements. There was nothing, though, about her death.

“If you find anything—” she said. Then: “They won’t talk about her.”

I started slipping her photocopied pages a week later. I knew what it was like to have a parent you didn’t know. The way it could feel likeyou didn’t knowyourselfbecause you didn’t know them. Five days ago, I had slipped her a copy of the file labeledSarah—Financial.

As soon as we were alone on the road, she said, “I called our attorney today.”

I didn’t press. My not pressing was part of the deal. She was on an allowance. She couldn’t drive, couldn’t work. She wasn’t allowed a world outsidethe family.She couldn’t even talk. Not really. Not to anyone. All of it had been curdling in the decade since she left college. Since she began to realize what a shit hand she had been dealt. They had been different before her mother died, she said. Or at least she heard they were. She had been too young then to know.

It had all come out in dribs and drabs in the three years we’d been friends.

“Oh?” It was all I said.

She nodded, the movement tight and small. She looked around us, but it was impossible to see more than ten feet in the fog. “I asked him about my mother’s trust.”

Helen never talked about the family’s financial picture. I only ever saw the statements that came in for Marcus and Naomi, the numbers comically long.

“And he paused,” she continued. “He told me: ‘Your father is the trustee of that account. I’ll need his permission to discuss it.’ But I’m the beneficiary. I have rights. I told him that.”

She looked at me from under her baseball hat, and I could see it then, the way her face was twisted with anger.

“He told me it was true. That she set up a trust for me early in their marriage. All of her creative proceeds went there, into a handful of investments. She was doing okay for herself before she met my dad. She really was. She didn’tneedhim.” Her almond eyes were narrow, her lips thin.

She was jealous. I got it.

“The attorney finally sent me the statement history. He had no choice. I knew my rights. And, Lorna, there was money in it. Almost two million.”

Next to me, she kept a grueling pace. As if we were trying to outrun someone.

“She left me a fuckingtrust.A lifeline.Do you know how badly I needed that a decade ago? I might have…” She didn’t finish. Both of us knew what a ticket out looked like. It looked like two million dollars.

She shook her head. “It’s gone now.”

“What do you mean?”

I hadn’t banked on this: the twist. I’d thought of it as a favor, passing her those papers.See, something has been set aside. They’re just keeping it from you.Maybe I had hoped I might get a finder’s fee.

“Richard was the named trustee until I turned thirty. Then I was to be made trustee and sole beneficiary.”

Helen was already thirty-three. And she sometimes called her father Richard. It was strange and impersonal. The same way my mother made me call her Lori, never Mom.It makes you seem more grown up,she used to tell me. That, and it supported her lie when she told people she didn’t have a child.

“But he liquidated it. All of it. While I was still in school. He never provided a single accounting statement, nothing. He shirked every fiscal responsibility he had to me. The attorney helped him hide it. Fucking Bud. He’s been on the payroll for so long, he’d do anything for them. And then, after our call, Bud sent me anindemnity agreementinsulating my father and his firm. He wanted me to promise I wouldn’t sue for malfeasance!”

She was almost yelling. I always knew she was as angry as me. Even if she didn’t.

“They’ve never let me work. Too much potential for exposure, my father says. But do you know what I could have done with that money? I could have rented an apartment. I could have paid for school. I could have hiredmy ownattorney. There could have been restraining orders. Distance. Instead, I’ve been too afraid to do anything except play the good girl fordecades.Too afraid that I might upset them. Bring unwanted attention. Because after all, they’re myfamily. Don’t Iowe themthat? And they love me, right? They want what’s best for me?”

“That hasn’t been my experience with family,” I said, my voice low. Helen knew about my childhood, the way my mother stole it from me. I didn’t like to talk about it, but I told Helen because I thought it would knit us together. It did. It has.

“It hasn’t been mine either,” Helen said, her voice back under control. “But I never imagined that they would take away something that belonged to me. I always thought the point was that I had nothing. That I would get it eventually. That I wasdependent.” She paused and then laughed. “But that was never true.”

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