Friday, after shopping, I was exhausted. Calvin found me asleep when he got home from work. I don’t know what he had planned for us, but he quickly accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere so he ordered us pizza with the plan to just hang out. Rather than stay in the guest bedroom with a little TV, we moved upstairs to his room where the TV could be seen from the bed.
We sat up in bed and ate pizza. He told me about Steve accepting a position at the dealership and how he and Hannah are planning on moving as soon as the semester ends. He sounded happy for them. He said it would give Steve a good job so he could support his sister. The comment was completely acceptable, given he had no idea that Steve, Curtis, and I had money. Lots of money.
I knew it was time, but just thinking about it made my stomach roll. Another good thing about being in his room, the attached bathroom. As I bent over the toilet for the second day in a row, I prayed that it wasn’t pizza that was making me puke today. It would be a long, miserable pregnancy if I got sick every time I ate pizza. My hair was still braided from this morning, so I didn’t need Cal to hold my hair. Instead, he gently rubbed circles on my back and got me a wet washcloth to clean myself up with. I rinsed my mouth out and thankfully, he had several new toothbrushes I was able to choose from.
He moved the pizza away from the bed and pulled the covers back for me to climb in. Once we were snuggled in comfortably, I sucked in a lung filling breath and shared with him information that very likely could change his view of me or his vision of our marriage. I didn’t know what his opinion was going to be. “I need to tell you somethings before we get married. It isn’t something I’ve ever talked about. For that matter, it isn’t something that Steve or Curtis have talked about either. We’ve only known for approximately five months. When the initial dust settled, we agreed that when one of us wanted to tell someone, the other two had to agree before we could say anything.”
His face was so open and accepting as I spoke. He’ll never know how much courage I took from looking at him as I spoke. “Apparently, when my parents died, we inherited their life insurance. Grandma and Grandpa never told us. They used their own money to raise us. They locked the insurance money into trust accounts for us. We each have our own. The stipulations are that we can have the money when we graduate college or turn 25, whichever comes first.” I could see his wheels turning, so I quickly continued before he could say anything. “I’m not done. We also received life insurance money from Grandma, which is in a certificate of deposit account and Grandpa’s which is spread in several different accounts. Then, apparently, while Grandma was still alive, she hired a bulldog of an attorney and filed a wrongful death suit against Cody and his parents. We had no knowledge of the lawsuit, because they settled out of court. They settled for a lot of money.” I wasn’t sure what his reaction was going to be. On one hand, I didn’t want to tell him dollar amounts if he was going to freak out about me having money. On the other hand, I needed him to understand the magnitude of what I was explaining.
“I had no idea. You understand that I had no idea you had lots of money, right?” He thought that I thought he was with me for my money. I couldn’t help but laugh. Seriously, it wasn’t until I went shopping with his sister that I even bought a name brand item.
“Babe, there is no way you could have known. Steve hasn’t even told Hannah. He will eventually because when we talked about telling you, he admitted he was almost ready to tell Hannah. I think it is important that you know what kind of money I am talking about. The trust that is in my name from my parent’s life insurance, the one that I have to graduate college or turn 25 to have access to, is currently about $950,000. The life insurance money from my grandparents, I have a one year certificate of deposit, which is currently about $275,000, which is from my grandma. Grandpa’s money is split up between a few small certificate of deposits that are short term, intended to mature every month to give me monthly spending money. My monthly spending amount is $10,000 which I have never even come close to spending. That being said, I move everything from my checking into my savings at the end of each month, I have over $70,000 in my everyday checking and savings account. Now, the big one.” I could see his eyes pop at the mention of a big one, as if what I told him is not big enough already. “The wrongful death money is sitting in one trust account for all three of us. We haven’t made any decisions about the funds because, quiet frankly, we don’t need the money at this point. The last statement I got said we’re sitting at about 52.1 million.”
“Holy shit Sierra! That is a lot of fucking money Babe. Seriously. Wow.” I could see his wheels were spinning out of control, just like the three of us experienced when we found out. I gave him a minute to process.
“When we found out, the first thing I told Steve and Curtis was that we needed to go to the bank, I wanted to go for a long run, then I wanted to go on a real vacation with them. We had already agreed to sell my parent’s house, which we ended up donating instead, so we hired someone to finish all the fix-it-up projects and then the three of us took off for vacation. So, I understand that it’s a lot to take in. What I need you to know is that, the money doesn’t define me. Somedays I am glad I have it, other days I forget it’s there. The big thing is Cal, I need to know that you aren’t going to have a problem with the money?”
He looked confused. “Why would I have a problem with the money?”
I smiled knowing I had the perfect example. “You gave me your credit card to buy my wedding dress. I don’t know how much you expected me to spend, but I can guarantee you that I went well over your expected budget. I did so knowing that I could afford it. I did so knowing that I will be paying the credit card off. What I don’t know is if you are going to have an issue with me paying it off?”
“Sierra, I am paying for it.” At which point I could see the light go on as he registered exactly what I meant. Before either of us spoke another word, we watched and waited.
I broke first, “I understand that you want to pay for my dress. Which I was willing to let you do, if I had picked an average dress and spent a reasonable dollar amount. However, I went completely over what one would consider normal, which means I do not want you to pay for my dress.” He tried to interrupt me, “Please, just let me finish. If my parents were still alive, they would be paying for the dress, the ceremony, the reception, the whole thing. So please let me pay for my dress. Tomorrow when we finish making plans, we can talk about who is paying for what.”
“I don’t want the money to be an issue for us. I also want to feel like I am taking care of you, which includes financially. I am willing to give you the dress, I understand your logic about your parents. If I let you pay for the dress will you let me pay for everything else?” I couldn’t help it, I smiled knowing he was getting the good end of the stick. I didn’t know when I fell in love with the dress that the crystals were Swarovski and hand sewed on. I don’t think anyone ever really thinks they’ll spend over twenty grand on a dress they plan to wear once. I know it was never on my agenda.