Chapter 6 - Intercepted Envelopes and the Bank Account in Vermont
After we calmed down, Lily reached into her purse and pulled out the stack of carbon receipts and money order stubs she had photographed with her phone before we left the basement.
“Mom,” Lily said, showing her the screen. “Look at these. Did you send these money orders?”
Eleanor put on her reading glasses and scrolled through the photos. Her jaw tightened with a mixture of shock and anger.
“Every single month,” Eleanor said. “From the day I got my first job at a salon in Providence, and later when I opened this shop in Boston. Five hundred dollars a month at first. Then eight hundred. For the last five years, one thousand dollars every single month. I sent them via registered mail to the house with strict instructions in the letters that the funds were to be deposited into college savings accounts for you and Lily.”
“We never saw a single penny, Mom,” I said, my voice hardening. “Dad told me that he had to work eighty-hour weeks at the garage just to keep the lights on. When I got into college, he told me there was no college fund because you had taken all the family savings when you left. I took out forty thousand dollars in student loans and worked two waitressing jobs while taking eighteen credits a semester.”
Eleanor’s face turned pale. “He told you I took the savings?”
“Yes,” Lily added bitterly. “And whenever we needed dental work or new winter coats, Dad would dramatically pull out an empty wallet at the kitchen table and say, ‘If only your mother hadn't been so selfish, we wouldn't have to live like beggars.’”
Eleanor stood up abruptly, walking over to a small wooden desk in the corner of her living room. She pulled open a drawer and retrieved a thick green ledger.
“I kept every single bank stub, every registered mail receipt, and every confirmation slip from the postal service,” Eleanor said, slapping the ledger onto the table. “Over twelve years, I sent Richard over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in direct child support and educational funds. And he signed for every single delivery.”
I stared at the numbers in the ledger. It was all there. Date, tracking number, amount, recipient signature. Richard Miller’s unmistakable jagged scrawl was recorded on every single delivery slip.
“Where did the money go?” Lily asked, bewildered. “If he was cashing a thousand dollars a month on top of his mechanic salary, and we were eating boxed mac-and-cheese and wearing thrift-store clothes… where was all that money going?”
I remembered the black leather binder in the basement.
“The gambling,” I said, looking up at Eleanor. “Mom, when we were in the cellar today, we found foreclosure notices from 2011, but we also found bank statements from a regional bank in Vermont. There were regular cash transfers being made from Dad’s checking account to an account registered in Burlington.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Burlington? Richard has a brother who lives near Burlington. Uncle Thomas.”
“Uncle Thomas died six years ago, Mom,” Lily pointed out.
“Then whose account was it?” Eleanor asked.
The mystery was growing deeper, darker, and far more sinister than a simple case of a bitter divorce. Richard Miller wasn't just a man who had lied about an affair; he was running a massive, calculated financial deception right under our noses.
“We need to go back,” I said, a cold determination settling into my chest. “Dad thinks Lily is just cleaning the basement. He has no idea we know about the letters, the money orders, or the bank records. Tomorrow is his sixty-fifth birthday dinner at the Elm Street house. The whole neighborhood is coming. The pastor, his friends from the garage, our relatives.”
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Lily looked at me, a spark of understanding flashing in her eyes. “You want to confront him there?”
“Not just confront him,” I said, looking between my mother and my sister. “We are going to expose him. We are going to dismantle every single lie he built his reputation on. But first, we need all the evidence.”
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