~*~
Abe didn’t know what to expect with this. He watched Tracy for her reaction, and when she was calm, so was he. So far she’d been very calm, and he was glad for that. Mr. Bloom had been a good friend to him, someone he could talk to without worrying he was going to judge him afterward.
“You’re a smart boy, aren’t you?” He didn’t answer him, knowing that if people found out how smart he really was, they’d make fun of him. “You should tell them parents of yours. They’ll get you into some classes that won’t leave you snoozing on the sidelines.”
“I love living with them. I don’t want to be turned out again.” Mr. Bloom asked him if he really thought they’d do that. “No. But I don’t want to have to worry that they will. It’s what my parents did. They didn’t like that I was smarter than them. So when they went to prison, and I went to the home, I met Tracy. We needed each other.”
“I don’t know your new folks that well, but they don’t strike me as the type that wouldn’t be shouting to the mountain tops bragging on you a little.”
Abe had grinned, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Even now, all these weeks later, he’d still not told them.
Now here he was in an attorney’s office wondering what the older man had left him. Not that he wanted anything. He wanted the friendship to continue, but it was over now. The elderly man had passed away in his sleep.
“Abraham Dante.” He looked at the well-dressed man when he said his name. “Mr. Bloom thought a great deal of you and your sister. But he especially loved you. He said that had he had a chance to have any children he wanted, he would have picked you and your sister, Tracy. He was a good man, too, you know.”
“I know. He and I would have talks all the time about how things worked when he was younger. I loved him so much.” The man nodded. “He didn’t have to leave me anything. I just liked being around him. Whatever it is, it won’t mean as much to me as having him as a friend.”
“I think he said you’d say that. But what he left you is his house, and the property surrounding it. Also, you’re going to be the owner of all his vines. Did he tell you he was a winemaker?” Abe said he’d shown him how it worked. “Yes, Mr. Bloom told me he did that. Said you’d understand things he told you and how to make it work, so you didn’t have to work all that hard.”
“That’s a lot of vines. Don’t you think?” Mr. Shelby told him it was. “I’m just a little boy. I don’t know how to do enough yet.”
“That’s why he’s going to have your dad here help you. There are also people that will help you learn the job so you’ll be as good if not better than he was at it. Mr. Bloom told me if anyone could make it work, it would be you.” Abe was touched by the thought of the elderly man. “After we’re finished up here, I’ll go over the contracts with you and your dad so you can start on it as soon as tomorrow. The people working the winery are happy you’re going to be running the place for him.”
Mr. Shelby looked at Tracy. She, too, said she didn’t want anything from Mr. Bloom. But Mr. Shelby told her that it was his pleasure to tell her what she’d been left by the older man.
“He left you his money. All of his shares in all his companies too. You both are very wealthy. He figured that by the end of this year, both of you will have turned what he left you into so much more.” Tracy asked about his family. “There is no one to fight with you over what he’s done. They’re all gone, his family. There weren’t any children from his union with his wife either. He was a good man who was never blessed, he called it, with anyone he could call his own until you two came along.”
“I don’t understand.” Abe looked at Tracy and thought she was dense if she didn’t get that she had all the money. “I’m incredibly happy with what he’s done, but we just met him at Christmas. I don’t know how we could have made an impression on him that quickly, do you?”
“Mr. Bloom made all his money when he was in his late sixties. His wife had passed on by then, and it seemed that anything he touched turned to gold. Even when he tried to make himself lose money, he would triple whatever he’d put into it. And a good thing too.” He winked at Abe. “As of this morning, when the paperwork came to me, you’re worth more than seventy million dollars. Ms. Tracy, you are worth a little more, but he said you’d be sharing with your brother anyway, so he made sure you had plenty to do that. He has plans for you both, as a matter of fact. Nothing that will take away the money, never that, but he wanted you both to be able to go to college and not have to worry about money. He also wanted to make sure you both lived close enough to your parents so you could go to them for not just advice, but hugs too. Mr. Bloom told me that Tracy gave the best hugs he’d ever had.”
By the time they were finished with the will, Abe was terrified. Not of the money, but that someone was going
