Page 155 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

CHAPTER TWELVE
The Debacle
I sat there with the phone in my hand, not knowing what to do next. It was one of those moments that changes everything—both what came before and what will come after—and it was too big to process.
I called my brother, and as soon as I heard his voice, I burst into tears.
He called Gam to see if he could explain what we were really asking for, but they had basically the same conversation. Her parting shot to him was slightly different, though: “When your father died, he didn’t have two nickels to rub together.” In the world of my family, that was the only thing that mattered. If your only currency is money, that’s the only lens through which you determine worth; somebody who has accomplished in that context as little as my father was worth nothing—even if he happened to be your son. Further, if my father died penniless, his children weren’t entitled to anything.
My grandfather had every right to change his will as he saw fit. My aunts and uncles had every right to follow his instructions to the letter, despite the fact that none of them deserved their share of Fred’s fortune any more than my father did. If not for an accident of birth, none of them would have been a multimillionaire. Prosecutors and federal judges don’t typically have $20 million cottages in Palm Beach. Executive assistants don’t have weekend homes in Southampton. (Although, to be fair, Maryanne and Elizabeth were the only two of the siblings, other than my father, to work outside of the family business.) Still, they acted as if they had earned every penny of my grandfather’s wealth and that money was so tied up in their sense of self-worth that letting any of it go was not an option.