The Bully

Chapter Twenty Eight

"I'm not going," I said, stubbornly, looking away from Bret as I spoke, fully expecting some sort of disapproval from him but he just sighed.

"It's your decision, Angel. I'll support you whatever you decide."

I looked across at him and the disbelief must have been apparent in my face because he smiled at me sadly.

"Angel, I don't give a fuck about your mom or what other people might think. I only care about you and what you want to do. If you want to go to the funeral I'll support you. If you want to get the fuck out of Calgary I'll support you with that too. Ok?"

"Ok," I said softly. He nodded and sat down in the chair opposite me, his dark eyes searching my face. Shaking my head I swallowed hard. I wasn't grieving exactly but there was a strange sense of something missing in my life now Mom was gone. I knew there would never be any kind of big reconciliation between us now. I'd sometimes fantasised that one day she'd suddenly realise how much she loved me and she'd beg me to go to her. She'd put her arms round me and apologise for everything she ever did to hurt me. The visit to her on her death bed had been so difficult for me to process. She had stubbornly refused to apologise and even when she tried to tell me she loved me it was wrapped up in her very apparent resentment of me for taking away my father's love. Tony had called by to see me and I'd been polite, if a little distant with him. He'd asked if I needed him to make all the arrangements and I'd just nodded mutely. Bret had talked with him a bit,  but my stepfather was clearly disappointed I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

I'd had a phone call from the lawyer that Mom used, asking me to head to their office the following day, which was the day before the funeral. I'd accepted the ten o'clock appointment and Bret said he'd come with me if I wanted but I just asked him to drop me off and wait for me in the car. I didn't want to see anyone so what I really needed was a quick getaway. Once I was in the office the lawyer wasted no time in telling me he had my mom's will and he was the executor of it. I fully anticipated a last act of spite from her, that I'd get nothing, but I didn't want anything from her. Leaving me something in her will would not make me feel any differently about her.

"Your mother of course didn't inherit anything from your father," the lawyer opened with and I stilled, staring at him. "Your father left everything to you in his will, but with the caveat in his will that she be your guardian until you were twenty one at which point you would be free to make the decision of what happened with your money and your home."

"Why was I never told this?" I asked, icily.

"We wrote to you several times over the years, Miss Summers but you never responded," he replied easily. "And it makes no difference now..."

"So you're telling me that at twenty one I owned all of the Summers' fortune?"

"Everything. All of your father's work, his accumulated fortune and the house. He asked that you provide for your mother but he absolutely put control of everything with you."

"So my mom had nothing to give me then?"

"On the contrary your mother has left you a gift. I don't actually know what it is but it's here." He passed me across an envelope and I opened it. It was a framed photograph of her and Dad, clearly taken before I was born. She was dazzling in it, laughing with her dancing eyes fixed on my father who had his arms wrapped around her, looking down at her with all the love I remembered. There was an envelope attached to the frame and I opened it.

This is what you took from me.

That was all the note said and I felt angry tears stinging my eyes. He mistook them for grief though and spoke in a quiet, sympathetic voice.