home, take my lumps, and spend whatever time I have with my family.
Thank you again for your help.
Don Trilby
PS You’re welcome to go ahead and post this. RMC has already filed suit against Mr. Tompkins for breaching his mother’s confidentiality agreement, but I didn’t sign any such thing, and I think other ALS patients and their families need to know how these creeps work. I’m glad I figured it out in time.
Ali was in the process of posting it when her phone rang. She was surprised when the caller ID readout said Howard Bernard. Why’s Howie calling me? she wondered.
“Ali?” Matt asked. He spoke in almost a whisper.
“Matt!” Ali exclaimed. “Is something wrong?”
“Mom’s stuff is gone,” he said with a sob. “Her clothes and her jewelry and her coats and shoes and everything. It’s all gone. They took it away. To Goodwill. While we were in Cottonwood.”
Ali remembered what Andrea had said about the moving boxes stacked on the front porch. “They did what?” she exclaimed.
“Dad,” Matt blubbered. “And I’m sure Jasmine helped. They packed up everything. It’s like she was never even here. How could they do that? Didn’t they know Julie and me would want some of her stuff? That we’d like to keep it?”
Sparks of anger lit up Ali’s line of vision, but she didn’t explode with the series of four-letter words that were on the tip of her tongue. She didn’t want to add fuel to Matt’s flame or any more hurt, either.
“Maybe they thought it would be less painful for you if you didn’t have to deal with those things,” she suggested.
“No,” Matt said. “Dad wants to forget Mom, and he wants us to forget her, too. So he can marry Jasmine. Can I come live with you, Ali? Please? I wouldn’t be any trouble, I promise. And Julie, too. We’d be good, the same way we are with Grandpa and Grandma down in Cottonwood. They always say we’re not any trouble at all.”
“I know you’re not,” Ali said quickly. “But it’s not that simple. Parents can’t just hand their kids off for someone else to look after.”
“You mean like we did Samantha,” Matt said.
“Well, yes,” Ali agreed. “Kids are a little more complicated than cats. And parents get to have the final say.”
“Shouldn’t kids get to have some say, too? I mean, Jasmine pretends like she likes us. She’s always saying nice things, but I know she doesn’t mean them. She’s just saying them to get in good with Dad. And with us. I don’t like her, Ali. I don’t want him to marry her.”
Three days after his mother’s funeral, Matt shouldn’t have had to be worrying about his father remarrying. But then, Howie Bernard was a clod. A highly educated clod. He had always been one in the past and would continue to be one in the future.
Ali thought then about the note from Lucille telling her appalling story. The courts had terminated the poor woman’s parental rights over a shooting that, with decent legal representation and any kind of justice, would most likely have been declared self-defense.
What if the remaining parent were charged and convicted of actual homicide? Ali wondered. What if Jasmine Wright and Howie Bernard had plotted together and succeeded in murdering Reenie? What then?
“They’re not going to get married,” Ali declared. “It’s much too soon.”
“Oh yeah?” Matt countered, and Ali had nothing to say in return.
“How’s Sam?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject. “I keep asking Dad when we can come down and get her, but he says he doesn’t know. That he’s too busy.”
“She’s fine here,” Ali said. “But I could bring her home if you’d like me to-tomorrow or maybe the day after that.” She was stalling on going out of the house as much as possible. Her face and neck were still black and blue from the blow Witherspoon had nailed her with when she first walked in the door. And there were other cuts and bruises that she didn’t remember individually but which made her look like she’d been in a serious fight-which she had.
“That would be awesome,” Matt said, sounding suddenly much more cheerful. “I know Sam’s ugly, but I really, really miss her.”
“She’s not ugly,” Ali said. “She’s interesting.”
“Gotta go,” Matt said suddenly. “Dad’s home now.” And he hung up.
As Ali hung up, she heard the New Mail click. At the top of the list was one from [email protected].
Dear Ali,
I’m on it. If it comes down to serious negotiations, we’ll do a conference call. Hang on to your cell phone. If his sweet young thing has him by the balls, you can rest assured he won’t be using his brains. We should be able to work a deal.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Helga
After reading that, Ali sat in front of the keyboard and tried to get a handle on everything she was feeling. She had every confidence that Helga would look out for her interests, but who was looking out for Matt and Julie Bernard’s? Not their father. Not Howie, the unfeeling creep who was willing to send his wife’s personal possessions off to Goodwill before his wife was even in her grave.
Ali remembered how she’d felt when Dean died. It had taken her months before she’d been willing to part with the last of his clothing. She’d kept some of it, just so she’d be able to press her face into it and still smell his scent and sense his presence. And Ali could imagine Matt and Julie finding the same kind of sensory comfort in some of their mother’s things. But those were evidently lost to them now.
As for Howie? Was he so arrogant, so convinced of his own infallibility, that he didn’t think anyone would notice the lack of respect he was showing for Reenie? Maybe he thought that, since she was ill, no one would bother looking beyond the official determination of suicide, that it would simply be accepted at face value.
But it won’t! Ali vowed. If he’s responsible for what happened, I’ll hound him until hell freezes over.
With her fingers flying over the keyboard, she fired an e-mail off to Andrea.
Dear Andrea,
I just heard from Matt. It seems all those moving boxes you saw on Reenie’s front porch were packed up to take her stuff to Goodwill. It’s probably too late, but can you see if any of it can be tracked down?
Thanks,
Ali
Once that was on its way, she exited cutloose and logged on to Reenie’s mailbox. By then, it was almost midnight-another day had passed. When the witching hour occurred, another day’s worth of Reenie’s correspondence would be lost forever. To keep that from happening, Ali went to the mail file and began making printed copies of everything that was there, starting from the oldest and working her way up to the most recent. When she finished with that, she opened and printed all the new messages as well, before resaving them as new. And then, just for completion’s sake, she went through the spam folder-all 78 of them-one at a time, opening and checking them first before deleting.
When she saw one called Account Numbers, she expected it to be one of the usual spam gambits offering low mortgage interest rates or maybe a solicitation to help some poor unfortunate African heiress reclaim her fortune. Except this one wasn’t spam. It was dated Thursday, March 17, 2005:
Dear Ms. Bernard,
Your inquiry from last week has been forwarded to me by Andrew Cargill, manager of our First United Financial branch in Phoenix. As you are no doubt aware, in the past few years there’s been a good deal of consolidation in the banking industry. Each time a bank changes ownership, it results in changes in account numbers. Usually the account names remain the same although in some instances, secondary or tertiary names on the account may be dropped from the record.
I understand your concern that, in the case of your children’s trust accounts, a substantial sum of money may
