Chapter 6 - WHAT I DID WITH TWENTY-TWO MILLION DOLLARS
For six months, I did almost nothing with the trust.
People found that confusing.
Caroline suggested investment reviews.
Nina suggested estate planning.
A financial adviser explained diversified portfolios.
I listened.
Signed what I understood.
Asked questions when I didn't.
But I made no large purchases.
No mansion.
No sports car.
I kept working at the middle-school library.
Not because poverty was noble.
Because I liked my job.
Then my refrigerator died.
For eighteen years, David always chose appliances.
He loved specifications.
I went to an appliance store alone and became paralyzed by thirty-seven refrigerators.
A salesman asked:
“What are you looking for?”
I almost cried.
Not because of refrigerators.
Because nobody had asked me that about anything in months without already proposing the answer.
“What am I looking for?”
“Yes.”
I laughed.
“Something that keeps food cold.”
He smiled.
“Good start.”
I bought a normal refrigerator.
Paid cash.
Went home ridiculously proud.
That was when I understood what my father meant.
Money should create choices.
Not identities.
The trust generated significant annual income.
I used part to buy a smaller house.
Two bedrooms.
One office.
No nursery.
I painted the office green.
Because I liked green.
Simple.
Then Caroline asked whether I wanted to exercise voting rights connected to Collins Materials.
Absolutely not.
At first.
“I know nothing about quarries.”
“You can appoint a representative.”
“Who?”
“Someone independent.”
That word had become beautiful.
I hired a fiduciary adviser.
Then attended one shareholder meeting anyway.
Mostly curiosity.
Collins Materials employed nearly four thousand people.
My twenty-seven percent mattered.
For the first time, I understood why Dad had conflicted with Grandpa.
The company was profitable.
But older governance structures concentrated voting among family trusts.
I asked a question about employee retirement-plan fees.
Three executives looked annoyed.
I smiled.
Apparently asking uncomfortable questions might be hereditary.
I did not become CEO.
Or chairwoman.
Or billionaire-business genius overnight.
I remained a librarian who now possessed meaningful ownership and learned slowly.
One issue caught my attention.
Tuition assistance for hourly workers was almost impossible to use because reimbursement happened only after employees paid costs upfront.
Meaning people who could already afford tuition benefited most.
I understood that kind of system.
Technically generous.
Practically inaccessible.
We changed it.
Not because I ordered everyone around.
Because I proposed a pilot with finance and worker representatives.
Direct tuition payments.
Part-time eligibility.
Certificate programs as well as degrees.
The first year, participation tripled.
I liked that more than dividends.
I also established something personal.
Not an infertility charity.
I was tired of every meaningful thing in my life being forced through that loss.
Instead, I funded public-school libraries.
Quietly at first.
Book budgets.
Technology.
Reading intervention.
Later, training for school librarians in underfunded districts.
I named nothing after myself.
Daniel Reeves eventually sent his final invoice.
I called him.
“This is obscene.”
“You asked for facts.”
“You apparently charge by the fact.”
He laughed.
Then:
“You okay?”
“Better.”
He hesitated.
“I’m glad.”
No romance.
Thank God.
Daniel was married to a woman named Rachel and showed me pictures of their twins constantly.
He had simply done his job well.
Not every competent man needed to become a love interest.
That lesson also felt healthy.
Angela’s case resolved the following year.
Because she cooperated early, returned her consulting advance, admitted forging the draft signature, and helped establish Warren’s conduct, she avoided incarceration.
She received probation, financial penalties, and professional consequences.
The forgery still mattered.
So did cooperation.
Warren Pike faced broader fraud charges tied not only to my case but other distressed-business transactions.
Apparently ours was not his first ethically creative restructuring plan.
David was not charged with forging my signature.
Investigators found no evidence he knew Angela had done it.
But civil claims from his investors over disclosures during the restructuring cost him.
He remained at the company.
Smaller title.
Smaller ownership.
Real work.
I heard about him occasionally.
Chicago is large until you divorce someone.
Then suddenly everyone knows someone.
Angela was different.
One year after our last meeting, she mailed me a letter.
I almost threw it away.
Instead, I opened it.
Rebecca,
I spent a long time trying to explain what I did through jealousy, loneliness, insecurity, David, Warren, money, your marriage, my childhood. Some of those things explain pieces. None make me less responsible.
Good start.
I also know I weaponized things you trusted me with, especially your fertility history. I cannot apologize enough for turning your grief into a financial argument about your competence.
I stopped.
That was the deepest wound.
Not David.
That.
I do not expect us to be friends again.
Good.
I only want to say that when you asked David whether I had HIV, I was furious because I thought you had tried to humiliate me. It took me months to understand how much humiliation I had already built into your life.
I hope you're well.
Angela
No request.
No emotional blackmail.
I folded it.
Put it away.
Did I forgive her?
Some days.
Other days, she simply wasn't in my mind.
May you like
That was better.
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