“I hate it!” he said with passion. “I’ve hated it all my life. When I was a teenager and he was still in elementary school, he was always snooping in my room. I used to put my most private possessions inside a locked box, then put it in another box, then into a third one. Each one had its own lock. The next morning at breakfast, Adrian would spread the things out across the table for everyone to see.”
She was calming down. “What if we asked him to please come to the front door during the day?”
“You don’t think I have? He won’t do it. Just let him see Jean and don’t try to defeat him at his own game.”
“But—” She couldn’t think of any way to thwart the man.
It was after Jean’s father died while she was in her first year in college that the real problems began. Her father, an accountant, had set up a trust for his only child’s education, so her first three years at school were easy. Except for the grief of her
father’s passing, she enjoyed herself, and finances had been no problem.
But one day during the summer holidays, Jean came home to find her mother screaming. Every penny they had was gone. Jean’s trust fund had been emptied, the insurance money was gone, two savings accounts had zero balances.
“I know he did it!” Mrs. Caldwell said when they returned from the bank.
“Who?” Jean asked.
“Your father’s brother, that’s who!”
“Uncle Adrian? I thought he was in jail,” Jean said.
“He got out last week,” Mrs. Caldwell said, “and I know he did it.”
The next year had been horrible. The police could find no way that Adrian could have taken the money. “It’s just not possible,” they said. Jean could tell that they thought her mother had taken her own money, probably as a tax evasion.
Jean helped her mother put a mortgage on the house that her father had worked so hard to leave debt free. Jean got student loans and a job so she could finish the last year of college. She had no more time for social events or dates. Worse was that she gave up her hope of law school. It cost too much.
During that awful year, she never saw or heard from her uncle Adrian. But her mother never ceased to complain about him. She’d had to give up her charity work and get a job washing hair at a nearby salon. They both knew that, eventually, they would have to sell their beloved home.
But it all ended almost a year after it began. Adrian showed up in Jean’s bedroom one night, just as he’d always done.
She glared at him. In the last year he’d become the enemy, the one who’d caused their poverty. “Did you—?” she began, but as always, he put his finger to his lips. He loved secrets.
He handed her a little blue velvet box. Jean opened it to see a beautiful ring of diamonds and pink sapphires. When she looked up, her uncle was gone.
The next morning the bank called to tell Mrs. Caldwell that all her money had been redeposited—with a 12 percent increase.
It had taken a lot for Mrs. Caldwell’s husband’s former partner to persuade the IRS that this wasn’t new income, and that 40 percent of the money should not be paid in taxes, but he did it.
Mrs. Caldwell quit her job and Jean went to law school, but what had happened changed her mother. She became bitter and angry, and began to look for everyone’s ulterior motive.
Jean never told her mother, but while she was in law school, she spent a lot of time with her uncle. She thought that the reason he’d put her and her mother through such hell was because he didn’t see them as people. She thought that, maybe, if he came to actually love them he’d protect them, and he’d never hurt them again.
Over the years she was studying law, he taught her how to cook, to dress, even to dance. Unknown to her mother, several times he sent her plane tickets and she went to exotic locations where she met fabulously interesting people—and had quick affairs with several of them. Through her uncle she gained a sophistication few of the other students had. She did well in her studies, and her outside life was exciting.
The only flaw in their relationship was that her uncle never allowed her to mention what he’d done to their mother—or to Jean. To Adrian, what had happened was over and therefore she had no right to bring up the past.
After her graduation from law school, her uncle disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived, and she didn’t see or hear from him for over two years.
But soon after Jean got a job at an excellent law firm in Richmond, Virginia, her mother called and said, “He did it again.”
Jean knew exactly what her mother meant. This time, it was Jean who changed. The man she’d spent so many days and weekends with, who’d taught her so much, had thought so little of her that he’d yet again stolen from her mother.
It wasn’t easy for Jean, but she supported her mother for eighteen months—and she never told of her association with Uncle Adrian.
By the time the money was returned to Mrs. Caldwell’s bank account, she was too angry to recover. The trauma of her husband’s death and the two long bouts with destitution had made her much older than her years. On Jean’s last visit home, she had caught her mother burying gold coins in the backyard. “I need to hide them in case he does it again,” she said.
Adrian’s voice brought Jean back to the present. “Tell me everything about this man you love,” he said as he took a bite of the risotto. She’d never seen him eat on anything but fine china and sterling silver, so now, seeing him with the cheap plates that came with the rented house was disconcerting.