Slightly South of Simple by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Author:Kristy Woodson Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

TWENTY-ONE

nest egg

ansley

New Year’s Eve, like every other important or unimportant holiday, is a huge deal in Peachtree. The town hosts an event called Marshmallows and Goals. There are fire pits all over town, actual bonfires on the island, and firefighters absolutely everywhere. I have this notion that there are so many flames you can see Peachtree from space.

Kids and grown-ups alike spend hours roasting marshmallows and talking about what they are going to do differently on their next turn around the sun. Not me, though. I have lots of goals, but I’ve never said them out loud to anyone. I like to play it closer to the vest than that.

Which is why I always used to tell Carter not to say anything to the girls about the money. Because you never knew what was going to happen. But he was adamant that they know they would always have a fallback plan. He was wonderful and caring and kind. But when he was adamant, there was really no arguing.

The year after Emerson was born, Carter had finally started to get those big breaks he’d always believed in. He had always done well. We were all taken care of, and that was all that mattered to me. But he was suddenly starting to pick stocks with amazing accuracy, something that can be as much about luck as it is about skill. Carter was a realist, though, and decided to diversify instead of keeping all of the money in the market.

He invested in a large whole life insurance policy with a company that was getting incredible returns. It was a huge security for me, no doubt.

Around 2000, I had noticed some strange patterns in Carter’s behavior. He was keeping odd hours, which, according to him, was because he was investing in overseas markets. It made sense, but something still felt off to me.

I wouldn’t find out until after his death that Carter’s job had turned into almost an addiction for him. The stock market is, after all, gambling by any other name. Looking back over our books, I saw that he had won big, then lost big, then won big, then lost big. I had no doubt in my mind that he would have won big again. But he died. So he never had the chance. And he never told me that he had taken out a mortgage on what I believed to be our paid-off apartment.

The one worry I knew I wouldn’t face when Carter died was money. The life insurance policy was there. We would be fine, despite the fact that the rest of our assets were minimal at that moment.

Brad, our insurance agent, had been a good friend for a long time. When he rang the doorbell on September 21, I was unfathomably relieved. The insurance companies were having a tricky time, because who knew who was really dead? But they had determined after ten days that Carter was gone. I was living my second-worst nightmare on a scale that was indescribable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.