“Exactly,” she said. “So in your system, she never stopped existing as an employee. She just became inactive.”
I nodded slowly.
“And your system,” she went on, “automatically increases salaries every year. Five percent across the board. And it doesn’t stop unless someone is fully removed. Plus she has shares I’m sure you didn’t adjust…”
The piece fell into place for me.I’m a fucking idiot.
“So I’ve been paying her this whole time.”
“Looks that way,” Rory replied.
I exhaled slowly.
“…so where the hell is the money going?”
She lifted the phone slightly, signaling she was still on hold, then answered anyway.
“To me.”
I rubbed my temple, still trying to come to terms with the fact I had been paying a dead woman for twenty-five years because I couldn’t let go.
“What?”
“When Mom got married, she combined heractivefinances with Dad,” she said. “But her original employee account? She turned it into something else. I’m thinking a custodial account set up for me before I was even born.”
My brows pulled together.
“You saying she been funneling money into an account for you this whole time?”
“No,” she corrected. “Youhave.”
My eye twitched.
“You never closed her employee profile. You never stopped the salary. And because she had shares in the company, that means her distributions—her profits—would’ve still been tied to that same structure unless they were manually reassigned.”
I stared at her.
“Look, I’m sure she probably put it to the side to give to me on my eighteenth birthday or some shit. But she died before she got the chance to tell me about it.”
“And because nobody’s been withdrawing from it…” I started.
“It’s been compounding,” she finished.
We both went quiet for a second.
“Over years,” she added. “With interest. With reinvestment.”
I ran a hand down my face slowly.
She lifted the phone again slightly as the hold music shifted. Before I could question it further, the voice on the other end of her call came back.
She straightened immediately. “Yes, I’m here.”
A pause.
“Yes, that’s me.”
Another pause.
