Chapter 3 - The Investment PlanThe next morning, while he spread peanut butter on toast, I asked, "Besides the house for your mother and the money for Kristen — what else?"
He froze. "What?"
"What else have you planned?"
"Renee, it's seven in the morning."
"I know."
He set down the knife. "Are we really starting this again?"
"I don't think we ever finished."
Finally he pulled out a chair. "All right. What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
He'd been thinking about a place near Silver Lake. Nothing extravagant, he insisted. Enough invested that we could live comfortably without touching much principal. He imagined helping Carol, paying off Kristen's debts, wintering somewhere warm.
The strange thing was, none of it sounded terrible on its own. I liked lakes. I hated our winters. I wanted Carol secure. I hated watching Kristen struggle.
The problem was that Gavin had designed our entire future without once asking whether I wanted it.
"Anything else?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
I took a sip of coffee. "When did you actually resign?"
"I told you. Tuesday."
"No — when did you decide?"
He looked toward the window. That was enough.
"Gavin."
"The morning after your dad died."
I set down my mug carefully. "Dad died late Sunday night."
"Yes."
"So you resigned Monday morning."
"Yes."
"We'd already discussed it."
I caught the pronoun. "We?"
"My boss and me."
"You'd already discussed leaving?"
"A few weeks earlier."
Dad had still been alive. Gavin had been quietly planning his retirement while my father was still alive.
"I was discussing options," he said.
"Based on what?"
He stood up. "Don't do this."
"Do what?"
"Make it ugly."
"I'm asking questions."
"You're making it sound like I was waiting for him to die."
"Were you?"
"No." I believed that part. Then he added, "Your dad was seventy-nine. He was sick. We all knew what was coming."
He heard how it sounded the second it left his mouth. "That's not what I meant."
"Then help me understand."
He walked to the sink. "I've worked thirty-three years, Renee. I've missed birthdays because somebody in Pittsburgh couldn't wait until Monday. I've spent half my life in hotels. I'm tired."
"I know."
"Do you? Your father sold his company and retired before sixty. He had choices."
There it was. Something I'd heard in his voice before but never named out loud. Resentment. Not exactly toward Dad — toward what Dad represented.
"I don't own a company," Gavin went on. "I don't have some giant package waiting for me. So when it became obvious we'd have enough—"
"We?"
He closed his eyes. "Here we go again."
"No. When did my father's estate become your retirement account?"
He grabbed his keys and walked out — unemployed, apparently, but with somewhere urgent to storm off to.
Over the next two days, I learned exactly how far his plans had gone. An email showed up in our shared inbox from a real estate agent thanking us for our interest in a lake property — Gavin had put down a refundable five-thousand-dollar deposit from our joint checking account. That evening Carol mentioned, almost casually, that she'd already told her landlord she probably wouldn't be renewing in four months. Then Kristen called.
"Do you have any idea when things might clear?"
"What things?"
A pause. "The estate."
"Why?"
Another pause. "I've been talking to one of my creditors. Gavin said I shouldn't lock into a long repayment plan if I'll be able to settle everything soon."
I sat at my desk staring at the wall. Gavin hadn't just made promises. Other people had already begun rearranging their actual lives around them.
When he got home, I confronted him. "You told Kristen to stop negotiating her debt."
"I told her not to lock herself into something stupid."
"And your mother thinks she's moving out in four months."
"She probably is."
"You changed other people's plans using money you don't control."
"We do have it."
"I have it."
His face hardened. "There it is."
"There what is?"
"Your money."
"Yes."
"You've never talked like this before."
"Because you've never promised away hundreds of thousands of dollars I inherited from my father before."
He shook his head. "Walter — Arthur — really got what he wanted with that trust."
Something in me went cold. "Do not blame my father because you quit your job."
The next morning I called Vincent. "Was the conversation in Dad's letter the only time Gavin discussed the estate with him?"
Silence on the line.
"No."
I went back to his office. This time he set a thicker folder on the table. The title page read: FOSTER FAMILY INVESTMENT PLAN.
I actually laughed. My husband had turned my father's eventual death into something that deserved a business-plan title.
Investment projections. A lake property. Housing assistance for Carol. A section titled KRISTEN — BUSINESS DEBT RESOLUTION, two hundred to two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Retirement projections for Gavin.
Dad's estimated estate appeared over and over. So did my name. Renee's expected inheritance. Renee's assets. Renee's projected investment income.
Then I saw the date.
Eleven months before Dad died.
Not three days. Not grief. Not a rash decision made during a terrible week. Eleven months. Gavin had been designing this life while Dad was still going to the hardware store and calling me on Sundays to ask if I'd checked the oil in my car.
I read it again. Then something hit me. "Vincent."
"Yes?"
"There's nothing here about what I wanted." He stayed quiet. "No section on whether I wanted to retire. Nothing about Julia. Nothing about Dad's scholarship fund. Nothing about just keeping the money invested." I looked at the pages. "I'm everywhere in this document."
He waited.
"And somehow I'm not in it at all."
"Are you all right?"
May you like
"No." It was the easiest answer I'd given all week.
Before I left, I gave him one instruction. "I don't want any inheritance transferred into our joint accounts. Not checking, not savings, not investments, not property. Nothing." And: "I'm not requesting large distributions for anything Gavin promised."
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