Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

'I don't understand...'

'It's very simple. After nineteen seventy-six, your mother never touched the trust again'.

'So what happened to it?'

'What happened to it?' he said with a laugh. 'Like the rest of us, it matured. And, fortunately, the people handling it...' (he mentioned the name of a big brokerage house)... 'they invested wisely on your mother's behalf. A largely conservative portfolio, with a small amount of adventurous stocks that paid off very nicely indeed'.

I was still finding all this difficult to comprehend. 'So, what you're saying is - after I left college, my mom left the trust alone?'

'That's right. She never touched a penny of it... even though her investment guy and myself both encouraged her to draw down some sort of income from it. But she always maintained that she was perfectly fine on what she had to live on'.

'That's not true', I heard myself saying. 'Money was always tight for her'.

'I kind of sensed that', he said. 'Which, quite frankly, made her decision never to invade the trust rather baffling. Especially as - given the way her portfolio was structured - the principal doubled itself every seven years. So, by ninety-five, the trust had grown to...' He peered down at some figures. 'Three hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars, and a couple of pennies'.

'Good God'.

'Hang on, I'm not done yet. Now in ninety-five, her investment guys took a couple of smart positions on all these new information technology companies, not to mention one or two emerging web browsers. And, of course, from ninety-six onwards, the market has been non-stop bullish. Which, in turn, means that they actually doubled the existing principal in five years'.

'Doubled?' I whispered.

'That's right. And, at close of business last Friday... which was the last time I asked them to give me an update... the trust stood at...'

Another squint at a column of figures.

'Right, here we are... Seven hundred and forty-nine thousand, six hundred and twelve dollars'.

Silence.

'That can't be right', I said.

'I can show you the computer print-out of the current balance. Your mother had money, all right. A lot of money. She just chose not to touch it'.

I was going to blurt out: ' Why didn't she?' But I knew the answer to that question. She chose not to touch it - because she was saving the money for me. Not that she would ever have even hinted at such a legacy. Because (and I could almost hear her telling this to Mr Tougas), ' I know far too many perfectly nice young people who have been ruined by a little too much money a little early in life. So I don't want Kate to know about this until after my death - at which point she should have already learned a thing or two about the value of money, and about making her own way in the world'.

Always one for the big moral lesson, my mom. Always one for denying herself everything. Always refusing to buy new clothes, new furniture, even a couple of reasonably modern, modest appliances. Even though - as I now knew - she could have afforded herself so much material comfort, so much that would have made her life that little bit gentler. But, oh no, always the stoic. Always the proper puritan who answered each one of her difficult daughter's entreaties with: 'I really do have enough, dear... I need so little... you must put yourself first, dear'.

And knowing the way her mind operated, I also understood the logic of her decision. Meg was right: she was the ultimate pragmatist... yet one with a deeply ethical streak. So though she might have felt compelled to accept that woman's money to pay for her children's education, there was no way that she was ever going to use a penny of the trust for her own needs. Because that would have undermined her complex sense of pride. Perhaps (as Meg had intimated) she did eventually forgive Sara Smythe... but once Charlie and I were no longer her dependents, she decided to act as if the trust no longer existed. Instead, she concealed it like buried treasure, to be discovered after her death. The last of the big bombshells to be landed on my doorstep in the days after her funeral.

Seven hundred and forty-nine thousand, six hundred and twelve dollars. It made no sense. No sense at all.

'Kate?'

I snapped back to the here and now. Mr Tougas was reaching over to his desk and retrieving a box of Kleenex. He put it on the coffee table, gesturing towards it. That's when I realized that my face was wet. I pulled a tissue from the box. I dabbed my eyes. I muttered, 'Sorry'.

'No need to be', Mr Tougas said. 'I'm sure it's all a bit of a shock'.

'I don't deserve it'.

He allowed himself a small laugh. 'Sure you do, Kate. You and Ethan. It'll make things a lot easier'.

'And Charlie?' I said.

'What about Charlie?'

'I was just wondering: what's his share in all this?'

'His share? As I explained earlier, he has no share. Your mother cut him out of the will. Didn't she tell you... ?'

'Oh, she told me that Charlie was not going to be inheriting anything. But she also said that there was virtually nothing in her estate'.

'I guess she wanted to surprise you'.

'She succeeded'.

'Anyway, your mother was very specific about the fact that the trust was yours, and yours alone'.

'Poor Charlie', I said.

Mr Tougas shrugged. 'You reap what you sow'.

'I guess that's true', I said and stood up. 'Is there anything else we need to discuss today?'

'Well, there are still a couple of small points about the probate. But if you'd rather wait until next week...'

'Yes, I would like to wait. I need time to...'

'You don't have to explain', he said. 'Give me a call whenever'.

I headed out to the street. I turned right and started walking north. I walked slowly, oblivious to my fellow pedestrians, to the traffic, to the din of the city. As if on auto-pilot, I made a reflexive right on 74th Street. I let myself back into my apartment, and began to act on the temporary escape plan I had been hatching in my head all the way uptown.

Picking up the phone I called Avis, and arranged to pick up a car that afternoon at their East 64th Street depot. Then I booked a room for that night at a hotel in Sarasota Springs. Powering up Ethan's computer, I sent an e-mail to Matt:

Ethan and I are going to be out-of-town until late Monday night. You can reach me on my cellphone at all times.

I paused for a moment, then quickly typed:

Once again, thank you for your kindness during the last awful week. It was much appreciated.

Then I wrote my name and hit the Send button.

At three that afternoon, I was standing outside the Allan-Stevenson School on East 78th Street. As Ethan emerged through the front door, he was a little bemused to see me standing there... with two small duffel bags parked by my feet.

'We're not going to the dinosaurs?' he asked, sounding disappointed.

'I have a better idea. A more fun idea'.

'What kind of fun?'

'Want to run away for the weekend?'

His eyes flickered with excitement. 'You bet'.

I handed him an envelope, addressed to his home room teacher, Mr Mitchell.

'Run on inside with this - it's a note to Mr Mitchell, telling him we're going to be far away from school until Tuesday'.

'How far?'

'Real far'.

'Wow'.

He grabbed the note and dashed back inside the school building, handing it to the receptionist at the front desk. An hour later, we were driving up the East Side Drive, heading west on the Cross Bronx Expressway, hitting the 287, crossing the Hudson just south of Tarrytown, then joining the 87 towards the depths of upstate New York.

'Where's Canada, Mommy?' Ethan asked me after I revealed our final destination.

'Canada's up above us'.

'Above us, like the North Pole where Santa lives?'