“You okay?”
I nodded because if I tried to answer, I would have cried.
Sarah at the teller window waved. Marcus from account services called out, “How’s med school planning?”
I kept walking.
Patricia appeared in her office doorway before I reached the counter. She had silver hair pulled back in a smooth bun and sharp blue eyes that missed nothing.
“Almeida,” she said.
I forced myself to say it plainly. “I need to close my account.”
Her face changed.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
“Come with me.”
That was how I ended up in her office, staring at the signatures I had never written.
Patricia placed the blue-tabbed folder between us but kept her hand resting on top of it.
“I need you to listen carefully,” she said. “I can show you records connected to your own account. I can explain the bank’s process. I cannot make decisions for you.”
My throat was dry. “Okay.”
“Your father came in with documents authorizing a series of transfers.”
“My father told me he took $180,000.”
Patricia looked at the screen.
“The total amount moved out was $217,000.”
For a second, the numbers lost meaning. They became shapes. Lines. A foreign language.
“No,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“He said one-eighty.”
“I know.”
My hands curled around the arms of the chair. I thought of every 5:30 a.m. alarm, every coffee-stained apron, every Saturday I had spent alphabetizing patient files while other people went to brunch. I thought of Grandma Eleanor’s hand in mine, thin and warm under hospital blankets, her voice weak but steady.
Don’t let anyone tell you your future is too much to ask for.
Patricia slid the folder forward.
“There’s another issue,” she said. “Your grandmother’s contribution was not simply a gift.”
I looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“She established an educational trust. You were the sole beneficiary.”
I remembered the word trust from family conversations after Grandma died, but I had been twenty and grieving. Dad had handled the paperwork. Mom had said, “Your grandmother wanted this to be easy for you.”
Patricia opened the folder.
Inside was a copy of a document with my grandmother’s name at the top: Eleanor Matthews.
Beneath it were legal terms I did not fully understand, but one line stood out because Patricia tapped it gently with her fingernail.
Funds shall be used exclusively for the educational benefit of Almeida Reynolds.
I stopped breathing.
“My parents knew this?”
Patricia’s silence answered before she did.
“Your father presented paperwork years ago consolidating the account structure. At the time, the documents appeared valid.”
“Appeared?”
She met my eyes.
“That is one of the reasons I was concerned.”
The office seemed smaller than it had a minute before. The diplomas on her wall, the picture of her grandchildren, the little ceramic mug full of pens—everything looked too clear, like my brain was trying to hold onto ordinary objects because the truth was too large.
“My dad copied my signature,” I said.
Patricia did not correct me.