"There's really no reason for you to be afraid to hear what I have to say," Eleanor said when Tito still hesitated.
He turned to face her. "I'm not afraid to hear about you or your family. I'm just not interested."
"You might be surprised at what you find interesting. At least sit down and let me explain. What harm could there be in that?"
The harm, Tito thought, as he walked back into the room, was that this conversation would dredge up all the old pain he'd tried to put behind himself. And of course anything he learned, he'd have to share with Maria. She was the one Bradford Thornton had gone out of his way to insult and threaten when they'd run into each other at a charity affair.
"I won't allow you to hurt my sister," he said.
"Well for heavens sake, why would I want to hurt either of you? You're my grandchildren. Besides, don't you think you both have the right to know about the past?"
"I try not to spend my time thinking about the past, because you can't change it. I believe in moving forward."
"An admirable quality," Eleanor said. "But sometimes understanding the past opens doors for the future."
She walked over to the cart, poured herself a tall glass of water from the pitcher, and glanced over at him. "Will you join me in this? Or would you prefer something stronger."
"Water is fine."
She nodded and poured another glass, managing to include a few of the cranberries and lime slices without splattering the water. Tito imagined she poured afternoon tea with the same delicate touch.
She handed him his drink, then took a seat on a small sofa, setting her glass on a coaster on the coffee table in front of it. Tito sat down across from her in an upholstered chair that was part of what he guessed was considered a conversation area, and did the same.
"Why me?" Tito asked. "And why now? I would have expected you to reach out to Maria. To assume she might be a little more receptive."
Eleanor studied him, and he met her gaze. Finally, she answered.
"I suppose I thought you might be a person who understands regrets." She lifted her glass and took a sip of water, then set it back down again. "Besides, your sister has a new baby, is settled into her life with her husband, and" - she glanced over at one of the paintings on the wall - "has launched her art career. I was reluctant to do anything right now to upset the balance of that life."
"What are you doing, stalking us?"
"Hardly. I've just been keeping myself advised."
"For how long?"
"Well. You do get directly to the point."
"I'm still trying to figure out what the point is." He took a deep breath. "It's not that I don't appreciate the contributions you've made to my nonprofit, but I don't understand why all the secrecy about the T&M trust."
"I established the T&M Trust - the Tito and Maria Trust, actually - the day I found out your names and the fact that you were both right here in Miami. One of the reasons for this meeting is that I'll be turning control of that Trust over to you and your sister."
He supposed it was guilt money for ignoring their very existence for all these years, and that realization made his words come out harsher than he'd intended. "I don't want your charity."
Eleanor only raised one finely arched eyebrow. "Really? For a man who runs a charitable organization, that's an odd sentiment."
"I think you know what I mean."
"Yes," Eleanor said after a moment. "I think I do."
Tito heard the sound of a door closing somewhere toward the front of the house, and a moment later Chloe appeared in the entrance to the room, still wearing her workout clothes and carrying a white bakers' box.
"Sorry to interrupt," she said. "I rode my bike over to the little market. I thought you might want some croissants or muffins so I picked up a selection." She set the box on the coffee table between them, then added two small plates and some napkins from a lower shelf on the beverage cart.
"Chloe, you didn't have to do that," Eleanor said. "I thought you were upstairs doing yoga or studying."
"I know you didn't have any breakfast this morning," Chloe said. "You have to take care of yourself." She turned to Tito. "I'll leave you two alone now, but I'm warning you not to upset her."
"I'm not some delicate flower," Eleanor protested, but Chloe just smiled and left the room.
"Rather protective of you," Tito said.
"She's a good girl. Honestly, having her here has been a blessing, especially since my son died."
Tito felt his jaw clench at the mention of Bradford Thornton, but said nothing.
She glanced down at the selection of baked goods. "I've sponsored a number of students over the past few years. I know it's to help them out, but I think I benefit more from the companionship."
Eleanor selected a small poppy seed muffin and set it on her plate, but made no move to actually eat it.
"You asked me why now, and I haven't answered you yet. I think it might be best to go back to the beginning."
When she reached for her glass of water, Tito noticed that her hand slightly trembled. He was not going to feel pity for this woman, sitting here in her multimillion dollar estate, while his mother had spent years barely making ends meet, and constantly worried that she wouldn't be able to pay all the bills and that they could end up on the street. It would have taken so little money to make a difference for the young, single mother who worked two jobs and struggled to put food on the table and find daycare she could afford. It had been ten really hard years, until she met and later married the man who became their stepfather and lifted them out of poverty to a middle class life and, for the first time, the promise of a future.
Even though it wasn't necessarily logical, Tito couldn't help but believe that if his mother hadn't had to struggle and worry so much in those early years, maybe she wouldn't have ended up dying so young of cancer while he was in prison. Any money Eleanor was spending now on donations to OFC and purchasing Maria's artwork was just too late. Where had she been when they really needed her resources?
"You see," Eleanor began, settling back in her seat, "it was my husband who was not pleased when Bradford began dating your mother. They were in high school, but, of course, you already knew that. She was a gifted artist. I see where your sister gets her talent."
"She was on scholarship to that fancy school your son attended," Tito said.
"That's right. As I was saying, I thought she was a lovely girl. My husband disapproved, which I found rather ironic, both then and now." She leaned forward slightly. "My husband came from a well-to-do family, but did not have the kind of generational wealth and privilege that I grew up with. That came from the Bancroft's, my side of the family. I have to say that when Bradford - my husband's name also," she said as an aside. "When Bradford and I became involved my family and most of my social circle considered that I was marrying beneath me, and opposed it rather strenuously. But they came around eventually. My husband make a very good living as an attorney and he invested money well, both his and some of my own. Eventually everyone forgot about his roots, including, apparently, him.
"Status was very important to my husband, probably because of that very fact, and I'm afraid he raised our son to feel much the same way. I was actually proud of Brad when he fell for your mother, a girl who was outside our social milieu. And they were so young. I suppose my husband thought it would all just dwindle away once Brad went off to his Ivy League college."
"But my mother got pregnant."
Eleanor sighed. "Yes. Your mother got pregnant. They told us together, all full of plans to get married. Brad still wanted to go to that Ivy League college of course, and for us to set them up in a little apartment near campus and she could stay home with the baby - we didn't know it was going to be twins - and then pursue her own education later."
She looked away for the moment, seeming to stare into the horizon of the seascape on the painting of Maria's that hung on the wall. When she turned back to him her eyes were moist but her composure was intact.
"My husband came to me later and told me that your mother's parents had persuaded her to go out of state and live with her aunt until the baby came, and that she was giving it up for adoption. That they didn't want her to marry so young when she had scholarships and such a bright future. He was my husband. I believed him. When I approached Brad, he told me he didn't want to talk about it, and I assumed he was hurt by her decision and was trying to put things behind him. Then Brad left for college, and that was the last I knew for many, many years."
She looked into Tito's eyes. "I wondered about you from time to time. The grandchild I would never have the chance to know. I hoped you had been adopted by a good family, that you had a good life. There was always a sadness in me, even more so after Brad married some years later and he and my daughter-in-law made the decision not to have children. Somewhere out there was the only grandchild I would ever have."
"But that was all a lie," Tito said, trying to take it in. Was it possible this woman actually hadn't known?
"Yes. I know that now. A few years ago Bradford - my husband Bradford - was diagnosed with a terminal disease. He ended up bedridden and we had a lot of long talks. Now, finally, there was time to slow down. No more important deals he had to close, no more long hours at the office trying constantly to increase his portfolio, although God knows he'd already earned more money in investments than we could spend in several lifetimes. I was telling him once that my one regret was that we'd never had grandchildren to pass on our legacy to, and that it was a shame I'd never know what became of the one grandchild we did have.
"He got this pained expression on his face and he confessed that he had lied to me the only time in our whole marriage. And he begged me to forgive him."
She broke a small piece of muffin and raised it to her lips, chewing slowly as she seemed to gather her thoughts.
"What I learned that day was that I'd been told partial truths, the lies woven in so seamlessly that I never suspected. And because there was some truth it was more believable. It's hard telling it."
"Not as hard as living it," Tito commented.
"You're right. Apparently my husband decided that this marriage was not going to happen. He sat Brad down and told him that we would take away all financial support if Brad married this girl. They'd be completely on their own. He suggested that a better solution would be for her to get an abortion. Brad resisted but in the end, he was weak. He should have known that I would never go along with something like this - who knows, maybe it was even what he wanted. I hate to think that, but I honestly don't know. At any rate, he went to your mother with a check and she threw it in his face. And that's when she went to her parents who hadn't even known about the pregnancy yet, and they arranged for her to go out of state to her aunt and to give the baby up for adoption."
"So that part was true."
"Yes, but as I found out just a few years ago, she didn't give the baby up. The babies. She gave birth to you and your sister and refused to sign the papers for adoption. When that happened, apparently her parents washed their hands of her. And my husband told Brad that if he had any more communications with her or acknowledged the twins, he'd be cut off from any money now or in the future. He told Brad that once she was on her own and found out how hard it was to survive, she'd give the babies up for adoption quick enough and it would be the best thing for everyone. Of course, as I only learned as my husband was dying, that never happened."
Tito stood up, paced across the room, there turned back to face Eleanor. "Would it have been so damn hard for him to just pay child support? He didn't have to marry her."
"I agree. My husband saw things differently. And in time, I suppose, so did Brad."
"Maria went to him when our mother was dying of cancer."
"I didn't know that." Something passed over her face. Shock, maybe, but almost instantly, resignation.
"He wrote her a check - treated it like extortion - and told her never to speak to him again."
"I wish I could say I was surprised. Deeply disappointed, but not surprised."
"Did he tell you he ran into her at an art show?"
"Yes, he did say that. After my husband died I confronted Brad with what I'd learned. He admitted it, told me he had regrets."
Tito snorted.
Eleanor went on as if she had not been interrupted. "He told me some time later that he saw her at the fundraiser and she specifically said she wanted nothing to do with him. He said he would respect that and asked me to respect it as well as her wishes."
Tito could feel his blood heating. Bradford Thornton was already dead, and there was nowhere to direct his anger. "It was the other way around," he said tersely, and made himself ignore the pained expression on Eleanor's face. "He's the one who told Maria he wanted nothing to do with her and threatened consequences if she were to make their relationship public. He didn't want to 'embarrass' his wife."
Eleanor sighed. "He was my son, and he's dead now. I had given him an ultimatum, told him he needed to make things right, but when he told me Maria didn't want anything to do with him, I really felt that my hands were tied. I decided then to do what I could to help you and Maria, but from a distance. That's why I began using the Trust I'd already established to look for ways I could help you. By that time you were already due to be released from prison, and had the law firm owned by Ritchie Perez and his partners working on your behalf. So I bided my time, and when you started your nonprofit I saw a way to make a meaningful difference for you."
She raised her eyes to him again. "You should know that even before then I had already changed my will. Brad had a certain amount of wealth in his own right, and I was still leaving him his father's portion of the estate. But everything else - the assets that came down through the Bancroft family, this house, my personal investment accounts - all of that goes to you and your sister."
Tito's eyes widened in surprise. "You did that before your son died? You were cutting him out of your will?"
"He would have still had plenty. But the legacy of my family continues through you and Maria."
"It's a rather tainted legacy, in my opinion."
"That may be." She shrugged and managed even that to be a dignified gesture. "Don't be a fool and walk away from a resource that can do so much more for the kids you are trying to help. It will all be yours and Maria's when I'm gone. But for now, I'm turning over the Trust to both of you immediately."
"I don't need a Trust fund. And I want nothing from a man who threw my mother away like she was a piece of garbage."
"As I have explained, the Trust - and the rest of your inheritance - does not come from my son or my husband. It comes down from the Bancroft line, from my family. And it's your birthright."
Tito took a deep breath and realized he didn't want any of this to be true. He didn't want to forgive or believe the woman who claimed she'd never known. He had spent his life hating his biological father and everything and everyone he came from. It was hard to let that go.
"I don't want anything from you." He turned again and headed for the door. It felt suddenly one the walls of the luxurious home were closing in on him. He had to get out. Go somewhere and think.
"That's a shame." Eleanor's voice followed him to the foyer. "Because I can only imagine what just the annual income from a $10 million Trust could do for OFC. How many lives you could change."
For once, Tito was speechless. But he never expected what she said next.
"One more thing before you leave."
"Yes?"
"Your sister seems well-settled with her husband and baby. But you are living in a cheap apartment in a questionable neighborhood. While I sit here in a house that has far more space than I'm using."
He turned slowly. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that before you refuse your legacy, you give yourself a chance to get to know your grandmother. And what better way to do that than to move in here? Give it three months, and then decide how you feel about claiming what's yours."
Author's Note: What do you think of Tito's grandmother? Will he actually move in with her? Or will he tell her to keep her money, and walk away?