Everything is Everything Book 2 by Pepper Pace Read Free Book Online Page B

mother’s.
    This is real talk , her mother had said once upon a time.
    “If you are going to control your destiny, then you need to know what and who you are up against. In the perfect world your mama left you sixty thousand dollars-“
    Vanessa shook her head in denial and balled her hands into fists as they rested in her lap beneath the table.
    “No, that wasn’t my perfect world-“
    Her grandmother continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “In reality your Mother was robbed by her so-called sister and there was nothing left for you.”
    “You didn’t have to make up a trust fund!” she snapped and the first tears spilled down her cheeks. Vanessa covered her face but a second later she refused to give in to her tears and she angrily swiped them away. “As long as I did what you wanted you were going to give me sixty thousand dollars?”
    Bertha Mae sighed and leaned back against the rickety kitchen chair. “Your mother had hopes and aspirations. She died before seeing them come true. When she left me that money, she did so knowing that I would use it to help you to become the best person that you could be. She didn’t leave it to her sister, she didn’t make you the beneficiary. She turned it over to me. There were no conditions on the life insurance policy that said ‘when Vanessa turns eighteen give her what remains’. She trusted that I would use that money to make your life as good as possible.
    “There is enough money for you to further your education the way you said you always wanted and then more. But there is no money to be used foolishly by a child that can’t see what is right in front of her face.
    Vanessa felt anger well up inside of her and boil over. She came to her feet. “I don’t believe you! You are making this up so that …” she couldn’t understand why her grandmother would make this up but it had to be a lie.
    Bertha Mae pushed an envelope towards Vanessa. It had been sitting on the table all this time, right next to the fruit bowl, salt and pepper shaker and the afternoon mail. However this envelope couldn’t have been confused with the mail because it was a big manila type envelope with a metal clasp at top, which kept it closed.
    Vanessa could see that it wasn’t new. She dropped back down into her chair and reached for it a few seconds after eyeing her grandmother. She opened the clasp and withdrew the contents. It contained a dog-eared copy of her mother’s life insurance policy. Her mother’s checkbook from 1978, a carbon copy of a bank statement that Vanessa couldn’t read because her eyes were so filled with tears. And finally there were the monthly statements from her grandmother’s own bank account, which tracked the interest rate on the insurance money. The top statement showed sixty-three thousand one hundred eighteen dollars and sixty-seven cents.
    A fat teardrop plopped onto the document. Vanessa rubbed beneath her eyes, swiping away the unwanted tears.
    “You can call the bank. The phone number is there.” Her grandmother said quietly.
    “I don’t understand,” Vanessa said in a voice thick with tears. “I just don’t understand.”
    “I know this hurts you Vanessa.”
    When Vanessa looked at her grandmother she saw that her eyes were also shiny and yet her voice was firm and unyielding.
    “It’s not my intent to hurt you. But I cannot in good conscious hand over sixty thousand dollars to you at this time. Not when you are acting so irresponsible-”
    Vanessa’s eyes flashed at her hotly. “Irresponsible? I am drug free, I got good grades while in school. I don’t drink or hang out all night. And this summer I decided to spend it away from home and that makes me irresponsible?” she choked out.
    “No, little girl!” her grandmother shot back. “What made you irresponsible is the moment you started lying because you thought I couldn’t do anything about it. You knew that you weren’t going to college for a long time before you decided