Page 196 of Love Me in the Dark
5
Jude
With literally nowhere to go and no other options I could see, I dug up a number for my mother’s brother and asked if Eleanor and I could stay with him for a couple of weeks until I could make some solid plans.
“My lil’ sis’s girls, eh.” There was a peculiar note in his voice. “And where is she?”
“We don’t know. She just disappeared.”
“Huh. How old are you two now?”
“Eleanor is about to turn sixteen. I’m twenty-one, so I’ll be looking for a job. I promise we won’t take up much space for long.”
“Can you do dishes? Cook?”
I had never washed a dish or cooked a meal in my life.
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. I have a spare room you can have.”
We left the hotel as directed, within the hour, and went immediately to Jerry’s office. He paced the sleek, carpeted floorof his 37thfloor office after pulling the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling window that divided it from the rest of the building. “Where are you going to go?” he hissed, pulling out another of his ubiquitous handkerchiefs. “And why did you come here?”
We watched him move back and forth in front of us. “Because you have control of our trusts, Jerry,” I said. “I’m going to have to stay in touch with you, obviously.” I shifted in the leather chair, chewing on my lip. “I wanted to know what we’re legally able to access now, actually.”
He finally stopped and stared. “Nothing. You can’t have any of it until this business with your father is settled?—”
“There has to be something. Our trusts were part of our maternal grandparents’ estates. They have nothing to do with our father and as such should be untouchable by any of this, right?”
He rubbed at the line between his eyes, suddenly weary looking. “Maybe. Let me check…”
Sitting down at his desk, he slipped on a pair of reading glasses and began tapping away at his keyboard, occasionally murmuring to himself. “Okay, here we are…let me just read through this…”
I waited impatiently while he read for a seeming eternity. Eleanor’s hand crept onto my knee, and I looked down, realizing I was jiggling it up and down with a frenetic energy. “You’re shaking the whole floor,” she whispered with a smile.
“Okay.” Jerry pulled his glasses off and focused on us. “The trusts are supposed to be released in increments when you’re twenty-five, thirty-three, and forty years of age.”
“But…” Twenty-five was still several years away. I couldn’t wait that long. Eleanor couldn’t wait that long.
“However,” he continued. “I think I may be able to get some kind of dispensation for the first portion of it, given your uniquesituation. If we can cite emancipation or prove parental death, negligence, or abandonment, we may be able to cite necessity.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Whatever we need to do; just please get the necessary paperwork started. All of our assets are frozen, Jerry. We’re on our way to Virginia to stay with an uncle, but that is a temporary situation. Please—” I stretched a hand across his desk, flattening it in front of him. He looked from the computer screen to my face.
For the first time since this entire mess had started, I felt like I had his full attention.
“Please help us.”
He nodded; his mouth set in a tight line. “You have my number. Stay in touch, and I’ll provide you with updates. It won’t be an overnight process, but I’ll get it done.” He rose, and we followed suit. “You girls be careful.”
A weeklater Eleanor and I were reluctantly ensconced in the spare bedroom of our uncle’s trailer in Virginia. We had to pay hell to get here, the temporary custody situation I had in New York not transferring to another state. Social services working between New York and Virginia gave temporary custody of Eleanor to my uncle, which baffled me until the Virginia case worker cited the fact that I was jobless.
“Get a job with a steady check, and secure a stable home environment, and we’ll revisit the custody arrangement,” she said, looking with some distaste at my uncle’s trailer. I had the sense she wasn’t impressed with the scent of weed that permeated the furniture, the dishes piled around the kitchen, or the mysterious stain on the far wall.
I vowed to do as she said as quickly as possible and get Eleanor and me both in a better place.
My uncle lived in a tiny town called Cold Spring, aka Bumfuck Egypt. I spent the first week settling in—getting Eleanor enrolled in the local high school, scouting area real estate for something inexpensive I could apply the tiny portion of my trust that would be released to me in thirty days, and applying to practically every college in the state.
The chances of acceptance plus a scholarship at this late date were slim to none, but I sent the applications in regardless, knowing they were my likeliest route to the well-paying job I would need to take custody of Eleanor.
