Teddy lowers his eyes, and for a second I think it’s over. But then he looks up at me again. “I’m glad they took care of you,” he says, and in spite of my frustration I feel a surge of affection for him. “But it’s not the same as what I’m trying to do. Don’t you want a safety net? After everything that’s happened to you? Don’t you want to know you’ll be taken care of for the rest of your life? No matter what?”
I blink at him, suddenly less certain. For a second, I’m almost tempted to give in, to say yes, to agree to whatever he wants. But something holds me back.
“I can’t,” I say, and his frown deepens.
“What your parents left for you,” he says, clearly anxious to be understood, “that’s great. But it’s just…it’s a pile of snow. I’m offering you a whole iceberg.”
“Teddy,” I say wearily, but he’s still not finished.
“I don’t get it. I don’t getyou.After all the awful things that have happened to you, this is something good. Somethingincredible.And you don’t want any part of it?”
My eyes are burning now, and the room feels much too small. I shake my head, unable to look at him, desperate for this conversation to be over.
“We’re talking about millions of dollars here,” he says, as if I’m not quite grasping the scope of it. “You’d never have to worry about anything again. It’s the kind of money that would change everything.Everything.”
These last words rattle me. I close my eyes and take a deep breath and wonder if everyone can hear the sound of my heartbeat. I try to swallow the sob that’s in my throat, but when I open my mouth my voice comes out watery and muddled, heavy with the threat of tears: “Teddy, please,” I say. “Don’t.”
His eyes widen slightly, but his face doesn’t change; he still looks wholly uncomprehending. There’s a long silence, then Aunt Sofia clears her throat.
“Okay,” she says with a note of finality. “I think maybe that’s enough.”
When I look up, they’re all watching me—she and Uncle Jake and Leo and Katherine—with slightly stunned expressions. The room is quiet.
“That’s really kind of you, Teddy,” Aunt Sofia says, looking around. “But there’s a lot of other stuff we need to talk about too, so maybe we should move on for now.”
Teddy grunts, retreating to a chair on the other side of the room, where he folds his arms across his chest with a look of frustration. Nobody else moves.
After some time passes, Uncle Jake sits up. “Food,” he says, so suddenly that Leo jumps a little. “I think we need some food, right? Anyone else getting hungry? Maybe Alice and Leo could go grab a couple of pizzas….”
“Sure,” Leo says, glancing sideways at me. “That sounds great.”
Uncle Jake starts to dig for his wallet, but Teddy beats him to it. “I’ve got it,” he says, walking over to the kitchen; he pulls a few bills from the drawer where they always keep a small amount of cash for emergencies. As he leans over to hand it to Leo, he avoids my eyes. “Gotta spend all this money somehow.”
It only takes two blocks for Leo to say it.
“What were youthinking?” he asks, his eyes wide beneath his red woolen cap. “How could you turn down twenty-six million dollars just like that?”
He snaps his fingers and I wince.
I don’t have an answer for him. The enormity of what happened is just beginning to settle over me. My response was quick and automatic, a purely knee-jerk reaction. It’s only now dawning on me that I just politely declined a literal fortune.
“I don’t know,” I say as I breathe into my hands. “I guess I didn’t expect him to spring that on me—”
Leo raises an eyebrow. “Come on,” he says. “You guys found the ticket, like, five hours ago. It must’ve crossed your mind that he’d offer you some of it.”
“It didn’t,” I say truthfully. “It’s his ticket. Not mine.”
“Yeah, but you bought it.”
“As a gift,” I say, exasperated. “Why does nobody get that?”
“Because,” Leo says, looking at me with amusement, “I don’t think anyone else would ever think that way.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “Most people would be dreaming of all the things they could buy or thinking about how awful the economy is or how they wouldn’t have to worry so much about getting a job one day. Most people would be busy looking out for themselves.”
“And you think I should be too,” I say flatly. “Since I have nobodybutmyself.”
