Chapter 3
The photograph remained on my kitchen island for three days.
Every morning, I walked past it while making coffee, and every evening, I found myself stopping beside it again, studying the two women frozen inside that sun-faded rectangle.
My mother stood on the left, perhaps thirty-five years old, wearing a pale yellow summer dress I vaguely remembered from childhood photographs.
Gwendolyn stood beside her.
Younger.
Smiling.
Not the cold, calculated smile I had learned to recognize over the past nine years, but something almost genuine.
Their shoulders touched.
Mom’s handwritten message on the back continued to bother me more than the photograph itself.
I knew who she was first.
Not knew what she was.
Knew who she was.
The distinction seemed important.
By Thursday morning, curiosity had overcome restraint.
I called Warren.
“I need to ask you something strange.”
“With your family,” he replied dryly, “I’ve learned not to classify anything as strange anymore.”
I sent him a photograph of the picture.
There was a long silence on the phone.
“Where did you get this?”
“It arrived anonymously.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
“Envelope?”
“Plain white. No return address.”
“Postmark?”
“Phoenix.”
I heard papers shifting on Warren’s desk.
“Paige, do not throw away the envelope.”
“I didn’t.”
“Bring everything to me.”
Two hours later, I sat inside the same downtown conference room where Warren had revealed the truth about the house.
The photograph lay beneath a clear protective sleeve.
Warren examined it under a desk lamp.
“I’ve seen this before.”
My head snapped toward him.
“Where?”
“Not this exact copy. Another photograph from the same day.”
“Why?”
“Your mother hosted a charitable fundraiser at the Phoenix property about twenty years ago.”
I stared at him.
“Our house?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Warren leaned back.
“The Eleanor Grant Women’s Initiative.”
I blinked.
“My mother ran a charity?”
“She helped establish one.”
That sentence made me feel as though another hidden door had opened inside a house I thought I had already searched from foundation to roof.
“How do I not know this?”
“You were five or six.”
“That doesn’t explain why nobody ever mentioned it later.”
“No,” Warren said quietly. “It doesn’t.”
He stood and walked toward a tall filing cabinet.
After several minutes, he returned carrying an old blue folder.
“My firm represented your mother in several matters before her illness. I wasn’t her primary counsel then, but my former partner was.”
He placed a photocopied program on the table.
Across the front were the words:
ELEANOR GRANT WOMEN’S INITIATIVE
ANNUAL BENEFIT — PHOENIX, ARIZONA
My mother’s maiden name had been Eleanor Grant.
I stared at it.
Warren turned the page.
Several names appeared under the heading ORGANIZING COMMITTEE.
Eleanor Grant Whitmore.
Vivian Mercer.
Danielle Ruiz.
And then—
Gwendolyn Price.
My stomach tightened.
“She worked with Mom?”
“Apparently.”
“For how long?”
“That’s what I don’t know.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Probably.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“Of course he did.”
My father’s silence had become a room with endless additional doors.
Just when I thought I had reached the back wall, another passage appeared.
Warren pointed at Gwendolyn’s name.
“Before marrying your father, Gwendolyn’s surname was Price.”
“I know.”
“She worked in fundraising.”
That stopped me.
“She told me she worked in event management.”
“Both can be true.”
Warren handed me another page.
“She helped solicit donations for the initiative during its early years.”
“Then how did she go from working with my mother to having an affair with my father?”
“I can’t answer that.”
Someone could.
Dad.
I drove to his apartment that evening.
For the first time since he had moved out of the Phoenix house, I visited without calling ahead.
His new building stood near Roosevelt Row, twelve floors of glass and pale stucco surrounding a small landscaped courtyard.
Dad opened the door wearing reading glasses and an old Arizona State sweatshirt.
When he saw the photograph in my hand, he went pale.
I almost laughed at how predictable the reaction had become.
Every object connected to my mother appeared capable of draining blood from his face.
“You’ve seen it,” I said.
Dad stepped aside.
“Come in.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“I’m not staying long.”
I held the photograph up.
“Tell me.”
His shoulders sagged.
“Your mother and Gwendolyn met through the foundation.”
“So Mom knew her before you did?”
“Yes.”
The answer still hurt despite being expected.
“How?”
“Gwendolyn volunteered at one of Eleanor’s events. She was young, ambitious, and extremely good with donors.”
“How good?”
“Good enough that your mother eventually hired her.”
I stared at him.
“My mother employed Gwendolyn?”
“For about eighteen months.”
Something cold ran through me.
“What happened?”
Dad looked toward the floor.
“There was an accounting discrepancy.”
“What kind?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
“I never knew exactly.”
“Stop.”
My voice came out sharper than intended.
He looked up.
“I am completely finished with you telling me partial truths. Every time you say you didn’t know something, I discover three weeks later that you knew almost everything.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither was letting me spend nine years being bullied by the woman who had apparently once worked for my dying mother.”
He flinched.
“Tell me the entire story.”
Dad walked into his small living room and lowered himself onto the sofa.
I remained standing.
“Your mother suspected money was missing from several fundraising accounts,” he began. “Not enough to destroy the organization, but enough to raise questions.”
“How much?”
“About eighty thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
“And Gwendolyn took it?”
“Eleanor never proved that.”
“But she suspected her.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother confronted her privately.”
“And?”
“Gwendolyn claimed another employee had made bookkeeping errors.”
“Was that true?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Paige, twenty years ago I wasn’t studying every detail of your mother’s nonprofit finances.”
“But you knew Gwendolyn had been fired?”
“Yes.”
“And years later, you had an affair with her anyway.”
The shame on his face deepened.
“Yes.”
“Did she approach you?”
Dad looked at me.
That hesitation answered first.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“During your mother and my temporary separation.”
“How convenient.”
“She came to my office.”
“Why?”
“She said she wanted to apologize for everything that happened with Eleanor.”
“And somehow that became an affair.”
Dad shut his eyes.
“I was angry at your mother. She was angry at me. Our marriage was falling apart.”
“So you chose the one woman Mom distrusted.”
“I made a terrible decision.”
“No, Dad. A terrible decision is driving home after two drinks instead of one. You maintained a relationship long enough to believe another woman’s child was yours.”
His mouth tightened.
I placed the photograph on his coffee table.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I watched him carefully.
Then something occurred to me.
“Does Gwendolyn have other photographs from the foundation?”
Dad’s face changed.
That tiny movement was enough.
“What?”
“Your mother kept records.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I said nothing.
He exhaled.
“She had an office.”
“In the Phoenix house?”
“No.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Where?”
“Downtown.”
I stared at him.
“My mother had an office nobody told me about?”
“It was closed after her death.”
“Where were the contents?”
“I thought the foundation board handled them.”
“Thought?”
“Yes.”
“Who was on the board?”
Dad stood and walked toward a drawer near his television.
He removed an old address book.
After flipping through several pages, he found a name.
“Vivian Mercer.”
I remembered seeing it on Warren’s program.
“Who is she?”
“Your mother’s closest friend before she became sick.”
I had never heard the name.
“Why didn’t she come around after Mom died?”
Dad looked uncomfortable.
“She and I had a disagreement.”
“About Gwendolyn?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
Dad gave me an old telephone number.
It no longer worked.
But Warren located Vivian Mercer within twenty-four hours.
She was seventy-one years old and living in Scottsdale.
When Warren told her my name, she apparently began crying.
The next afternoon, I drove to a small adobe house surrounded by bougainvillea and citrus trees.
A silver-haired woman opened the door before I could knock twice.
She stared at me as though she had seen a ghost.
“Oh, Eleanor,” she whispered.
I froze.
Then she covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry. You look so much like her.”
“You’re Vivian?”
She nodded.
“And you’re Paige.”
For reasons I couldn’t explain, hearing my name from this stranger made my throat tighten.
Vivian invited me inside.
Her living room was filled with books, framed art, and photographs.
One entire shelf was dedicated to charity events.
My mother appeared in half of them.
Laughing.
Speaking at podiums.
Carrying boxes.
Standing beside women I had never met.
I suddenly realized how small my childhood understanding of her had been.
To me, she had simply been Mom.
But she had existed before me and beyond me.
She had projects.
Friendships.
Battles.
Secrets.
Vivian handed me tea.
“I wondered when you would find me.”
That sentence immediately put me on alert.
“Why would I find you?”
“Because Eleanor planned for it.”
My fingers tightened around the cup.
“Planned what?”
Vivian stood.
She crossed the room toward an antique writing desk and removed a small metal case from the bottom drawer.
“I was instructed never to contact you unless one of two things happened.”
“What things?”
“Either your father died…”
She paused.
“…or you discovered the truth about the Phoenix house on your own.”
A chill moved through me.
“How would you know?”
“I read the court notice.”
“You knew about the life estate case?”
“Your mother asked me to monitor the trust.”
I stared at her.
“Are you a trustee?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly are you?”
Vivian placed the metal case on the table.
“I was Eleanor’s contingency.”
The word hung between us.
She opened the case.
Inside were several flash drives, financial ledgers, letters, and a sealed red envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Vivian touched it carefully.
“Your mother understood people better than anyone I ever knew.”
“What is all this?”
“Evidence.”
“Against Gwendolyn?”
“Against several people.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she do?”
Vivian looked at me for a long time before answering.
“Gwendolyn didn’t merely try to take money from your mother’s charity, Paige.”
She slid a ledger toward me.
“She tried to destroy Eleanor when Eleanor discovered where the money was actually going.”
I opened the first page.
Dozens of payments had been highlighted in red.
Shell consulting companies.
Event vendors.
Nonexistent contractors.
Transfers.
Then one company name made me stop.
PRESCOTT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT LLC.
I recognized it.
Not because I had ever dealt with it.
Because three days earlier, the same company had pledged two hundred thousand dollars to the nonprofit currently operating out of my mother’s Phoenix house.
I looked up slowly.
Vivian’s expression had turned grim.
“She’s still doing it,” I whispered.
May you like
Vivian nodded.
“And now she’s doing it inside your mother’s house.”
