Free ( 2011) Cry For Justice by Ralph Zeta Page A

how, but I’ve even managed to make the dean’s list and all. I have worked really hard at everything I’ve done since I decided to clean up my act. It hasn’t been easy.” She took another sip of her drink, which was almost half gone.
    “So, as I go to enroll for my last semester, those last twelve credits I need to graduate, I discover that I can’t pay my tuition. The accounts were cleaned out! There’s no more money left. My mother was broke! Left destitute thanks to the bastard she married, and then he leaves her just disappears!”
    She took another sip of her iced tea, her hands a bit shaky now, and looked away for a long moment, as if searching for strength to finish. “So I finally called my mother and asked about the funds in the family trust, the funds that were supposedly earmarked to pay for my tuition, and that’s when she told me: Evan, the man of her dreams, had betrayed her.” Another pause. She lowered her gaze. She seemed to be contemplating her hands.
    “My mother was a dreamer, Jason,” Amy went on. “She wasn’t a very strong person. She was highly emotional, always dependent on her medications and men. Always needing a man by her side to feel secure and perhaps even worthy. Boy, she sure knew how to pick them. She liked bad men men that had some growing up to do. Guys that chose to live hard and fast. The kind of guy every other woman wants but is smart enough to walk away from. She had a real knack for picking the wrong guy. I mean, look at my father how smart a choice was that ?
    “I guess eventually her luck ran out, you know? She finally married a real bad guy. One who stole not only her heart but everything she owned, only to abandon her. I mean, this piece of filth timed it perfectly. The very next day after he flew the coop, a man from the bank showed up to deliver a notice of default on her house. Which she didn’t understand. There was never a mortgage on the house. That’s when my mother finally decided to check on her affairs. He had mortgaged the house. She discovered she was dead broke. He had taken everything emptied all her bank accounts, sold or cashed out everything in the trusts and brokerage accounts. I mean, my mom was not billionaire rich, but she had more than enough money.”
    “How much money are we talking about?” I asked.
    She thought about it for a moment and said, “Would you believe me if I told you I really don’t know?”
    I smiled. “Sure.” No surprise. Most kids were kept in the dark about such matters. “How about a guess?”
    “Well, the house in Palm Beach, a friend told me, is about eleven million. He mortgaged it to the tune of six million. I know my grandfather, her father, had left her with a trust fund that had over fifty thousand shares of General Electric, another fifty thousand of Ford Motors, and ten thousand shares of a few other companies companies that sell electricity, if I recall correctly. They paid the best dividend, is what he always said. Does that help?”
    “It does,” was my response. It all added up to well over twenty million dollars at today’s significantly depressed valuations. Good old Evan had definitely struck gold on this one. “That is a significant inheritance.”
    She just shrugged.
    “We were well off or rather, my mother was. I had my own issues. Went down the wrong path. Bad choices when it came to friends. But I hit bottom and decided to turn my life around. I guess I owe Evan that much. If he hadn’t convinced my mom to kick me out, I would have...” She hesitated, then looked up at me and sadly announced, “I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways.”
    “So I’m told.” I smiled. “Do you know if your mom was on antidepressant medication?” I don’t even know why I asked that particular question.
    “Nora would probably know. I don’t. I’m sure she was depressed. I mean, she was fifty-nine years old. She had MS and had been battling cancer for a long time and had to have constant