Chapter 9 - WHAT THE MANSION WAS REALLY FOR
My company closed the Guadalajara deal fourteen months after the story began.
It became the largest contract of my career.
My personal wealth increased significantly.
Ironically, by then money mattered less.
I had spent years thinking money protected me.
It protected options.
That was different.
Money bought the mansion.
It didn't make it home.
People did.
Mom recovered enough to walk through the garden without assistance.
Donovan started kindergarten.
He asked difficult questions.
"Why doesn't Daddy live here?"
"Because Daddy and Mommy decided not to be married anymore."
"Did Daddy do bad stuff?"
I paused.
"Your dad made some serious mistakes."
"Is he bad?"
"No child deserves to carry that judgment."
So I said:
"People are bigger than one word."
He thought.
"Like Grandma?"
"How?"
"She says bad words when her knee hurts but she's good."
Mom shouted from the kitchen:
"I HEARD THAT!"
He laughed.
I did too.
Madison gave birth to a girl named Sophie.
Caden requested permission to introduce Donovan to his half-sister.
After consulting the family therapist, I agreed.
Donovan came home excited.
"I have a baby sister!"
No bitterness.
Children don't inherit hatred unless adults hand it to them.
I refused.
Caden's criminal case ended with a plea agreement.
Fraud-related offenses.
Attempted misuse of financial information.
Conspiracy connected to the land transactions.
He avoided the longest possible sentence because he cooperated extensively after Preston did.
He still served time.
Bonnie received probation and restitution obligations for her role in the fraudulent land option.
She wrote Mom an apology.
Mom read it once.
Then placed it in a drawer.
"Do you forgive her?"
I asked.
"I don't know."
"That's okay."
"Maybe forgiveness isn't a door you open once."
She looked toward the garden.
"Maybe it's deciding you don't want to carry someone else's ugliness every morning."
I liked that.
She never became Bonnie's friend.
She didn't need to.
The Prescott land remained hers.
Then Mom did something none of us expected.
She placed most of it into a conservation and education trust.
No developers.
No speculative buyers.
A portion became an agricultural scholarship program for rural students.
I protested.
"Mom, that's worth millions."
"I know."
"You could sell it."
"I could."
"Then why—"
She smiled.
"I sold land once to educate one girl."
She squeezed my hand.
"Now I can use land to educate hundreds."
I cried.
Again.
My mother had an irritating talent for doing that.
As for the mansion, people kept assuming it was my greatest secret.
It wasn't.
The real secret was why I had purchased it.
Three years before leaving Caden, I had created the Alexis Reed Foundation.
The mansion was originally intended to become its headquarters eventually.
The foundation funded women returning to education after financial hardship, especially mothers from rural communities.
I named it after Mom without telling her.
When I finally showed her the incorporation documents, she cried for twenty minutes.
Then said:
May you like
"You used my middle name wrong."
Classic Alexis.
