Chapter 4 - THE MUSIC BOX
First Century Bank was a quiet, marble-floored institution where Grandma had done business for forty years. Daniel and I stood in the sterile vault room as the manager left us alone with a long, heavy metal drawer.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a scarred wooden music box. I recognized it instantly. It used to sit on Grandma’s vanity. When I was a little girl, I would wind it up and listen to Clair de Lune while she brushed my hair.
Beneath the music box sat a thick manila envelope.
I opened the envelope first. Inside was a stack of canceled cashier's checks, totally $180,000. They were made payable to the exact federal bank that had issued the fraudulent loan.
"She paid it," I gasped, staring at the dates. "Grandma paid off the loan three months before she died."
Daniel inspected the attached bank letter. "She didn't just pay it. She bought the debt. The loan was satisfied with the original lender, but Eleanor had the debt legally assigned to her own private LLC. She held the note."
My mother didn't know. Mom thought the debt was still with the federal bank, hanging over my head. But Grandma owned the debt. And now, as the sole heir of the estate, I owned it.
The house was safe. I wasn't going to prison.
"Lyra," Daniel said softly, pointing into the metal drawer. "There’s something else."
Beneath where the envelope had rested was a faded, blue-bordered document. A birth certificate.
I pulled it out. It was Vanessa’s birth certificate. Mother: Linda Kensington. Father: Unknown.
I stared at the word. My father—the man who raised me until he died of a heart attack when I was twelve—was listed on my birth certificate. He had always treated Vanessa like his own, but I remembered the bitter arguments he and Mom used to have behind closed doors about "the man in Seattle."
Vanessa wasn't just the golden child. She was the product of an affair.
I picked up the scarred wooden music box. The winding key was stiff, but as I turned it, the delicate notes of Clair de Lune began to play. I lifted the lid. The velvet interior was empty, save for a small, folded piece of stationery wedged into a secret compartment I never knew existed.
May you like
I pulled the paper out and unfolded it. It was a letter from my mother, dated twenty-five years ago, just two weeks after I was born.
Eleanor, it read. I don’t want her. She cries constantly and I can't take it. If you want Lyra to have a safe home, you will deposit $5,000 a month into my account, indefinitely. Otherwise, I’m putting her up for adoption.
