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Abe had grinned, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Even now, all these weeks later, he’d still not told them.
Now here he was in an attorney’s office wondering what the older man had left him. Not that he wanted anything. He wanted the friendship to continue, but it was over now. The elderly man had passed away in his sleep.
“Abraham Dante.” He looked at the well-dressed man when he said his name. “Mr. Bloom thought a great deal of you and your sister. But he especially loved you. He said that had he had a chance to have any children he wanted, he would have picked you and your sister, Tracy. He was a good man, too, you know.”
“I know. He and I would have talks all the time about how things worked when he was younger. I loved him so much.” The man nodded. “He didn’t have to leave me anything. I just liked being around him. Whatever it is, it won’t mean as much to me as having him as a friend.”
“I think he said you’d say that. But what he left you is his house, and the property surrounding it. Also, you’re going to be the owner of all his vines. Did he tell you he was a winemaker?” Abe said he’d shown him how it worked. “Yes, Mr. Bloom told me he did that. Said you’d understand things he told you and how to make it work, so you didn’t have to work all that hard.”
“That’s a lot of vines. Don’t you think?” Mr. Shelby told him it was. “I’m just a little boy. I don’t know how to do enough yet.”
“That’s why he’s going to have your dad here help you. There are also people that will help you learn the job so you’ll be as good if not better than he was at it. Mr. Bloom told me if anyone could make it work, it would be you.” Abe was touched by the thought of the elderly man. “After we’re finished up here, I’ll go over the contracts with you and your dad so you can start on it as soon as tomorrow. The people working the winery are happy you’re going to be running the place for him.”
Mr. Shelby looked at Tracy. She, too, said she didn’t want anything from Mr. Bloom. But Mr. Shelby told her that it was his pleasure to tell her what she’d been left by the older man.
“He left you his money. All of his shares in all his companies too. You both are very wealthy. He figured that by the end of this year, both of you will have turned what he left you into so much more.” Tracy asked about his family. “There is no one to fight with you over what he’s done. They’re all gone, his family. There weren’t any children from his union with his wife either. He was a good man who was never blessed, he called it, with anyone he could call his own until you two came along.”
“I don’t understand.” Abe looked at Tracy and thought she was dense if she didn’t get that she had all the money. “I’m incredibly happy with what he’s done, but we just met him at Christmas. I don’t know how we could have made an impression on him that quickly, do you?”
“Mr. Bloom made all his money when he was in his late sixties. His wife had passed on by then, and it seemed that anything he touched turned to gold. Even when he tried to make himself lose money, he would triple whatever he’d put into it. And a good thing too.” He winked at Abe. “As of this morning, when the paperwork came to me, you’re worth more than seventy million dollars. Ms. Tracy, you are worth a little more, but he said you’d be sharing with your brother anyway, so he made sure you had plenty to do that. He has plans for you both, as a matter of fact. Nothing that will take away the money, never that, but he wanted you both to be able to go to college and not have to worry about money. He also wanted to make sure you both lived close enough to your parents so you could go to them for not just advice, but hugs too. Mr. Bloom told me that Tracy gave the best hugs he’d ever had.”
By the time they were finished with the will, Abe was terrified. Not of the money, but that someone was going to ask him what all had been said at the meeting. By the time they were having lunch, Grandpa with them, he was starting to realize that this was real and that he was going to be running some very wonderful companies. As soon as his food was brought to him, he turned to his parents and told them what he’d promised Mr. Bloom he would do.
“I need to be retested for school. I didn’t do it right.” Dad asked him what he meant. “I’m smart. Too smart for me to be in fifth grade. I have trouble, you see, paying attention when I know more than the teachers do. They never let me go and do homework that was in the higher grades, so I’d have to stay where I was and not do anything like I wanted.”
“So, you dumbed yourself down for the classes you were in.” He nodded. “All right. We c
an take care of that in the morning.”
“Are you mad at me?” Mom asked him why he’d think that. “I don’t know. The teachers at the home said I was a showoff and didn’t like it when I had the correct answer. Even when they didn’t have it right. They were forever mad at me.”
“I’m not. Not at all. I’m thrilled to death that you are smart. Now I don’t have to help you with your homework.” Abe laughed and said he’d help her. “You might have to, you know. I never got to go to school when I was made. I took college classes, but I never went to grade school or above.”
They talked about it all through lunch and on the way home. He had a lot to think about, and Abe was going to make sure that Mr. Bloom hadn’t done anything wrong by leaving them the money. He was going to make it show for something good.
At least he hoped so.
