Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss(46)
“Jesus, this just keeps getting worse,” said Bobby as he read the bullet points Bill had placed in front of us.
“Each of you will have to seriously consider what you will do for income,” Bill said, sitting back down. “Historically, the brewery has supported the family, but you would not be well advised to consider these trusts as . . . a significant source of future income.”
It was as if I’d come home to a seared patch of ground where my house had stood. Nor was the problem simply the loss of future income. Suddenly, the notion of being an artist seemed frivolous and misguided; I’d have to find something to apply myself to that guaranteed a decent living. Hell, I didn’t even have medical insurance. On some level, certainly, my mother had strived to prepare us for this all our lives, but being actively disinherited, well—this was a rather different thing from having money and pretending as if one didn’t. The life I had imagined for myself—becoming a successful artist, owning my own apartment, perhaps even collecting the work of other emerging artists—suddenly it all felt well out of reach.
Reading the fear in my brothers’ faces, I realized they, too, must be letting go of certain hopes about their futures. For Whitney, it was an Upper East Side apartment, Augusts on Long Island, and the ability to leave behind that monthly spike in anxiety triggered by opening his American Express bill. Just the night before, when my mother asked him about his job raising money for a friend’s company, he’d quipped that he’d “rather live Unabomber style in the woods of Montana” before he did any “bootlicking.” Now he might just have to.
Bobby had hoped one day to be able to leave his job at the brewery and run a restaurant in the Caribbean, but the way things were going at the brewery, he’d likely be leaving before he could afford to. The money had never been ours, of course, and none of us had ever had expectations of being “rich,” but knowing the Stroh trusts were there had given us the space to dream of the lives we wanted for ourselves.
“Hold on a second, Bill,” I jumped in. “Elisa is not the mother of our father’s children. That’s got to count for something.”
“No, she’s not,” Bill said. “But, you see, when these trusts were written, back in the forties, divorce wasn’t common. Your grandfather assumed that ‘lawful wife’ meant first and only wife. Times and circumstances have obviously changed since then. The documents, however, make no distinction between first and second wives. Or even third, for that matter.”
Whitney shifted restlessly in his chair, his upper lip beading with sweat. “Bill, are you saying that Elisa will likely get the biggest piece of the pie?”
Bill looked at all of us with sympathy. “At my urging, your father and Elisa are currently negotiating a postnuptial agreement. But . . . well, your father has no leverage, really, at this point. Elisa and her attorney have already rejected several generous proposals. So . . . you three should be advised that Elisa, now that she’s legally married to your father, can pretty much write her own ticket.”
“And you can be sure she will,” muttered Bobby.
“Afraid so,” Bill said.
I put my pen down on the table and pulled on my coat. “Are we finished?” I asked.
Everyone nodded.
“Merry f*cking Christmas,” said Whitney to no one in particular.
CHRISTMAS, 1974
(by Eric Stroh)
My father’s house was brimming with Christmas spirit. We’d come straight from the meeting at the bank, stiff from cold. Handel’s Messiah was piped in from hidden speakers in the walls, and a handsome trimmed tree brightened the living room, the floor beneath blanketed with festively wrapped presents.
“Bah, humbug!” said my father with a big grin as we sat down. “How about some eggnog?”
“Sure,” I said. I needed a drink. At least here I could count on more whiskey than nog.
“Elisa will be back any minute,” said my father cheerfully as he left the room.
“She’s dropping off some presents at her father’s house.”
Bobby, Whitney, and I gave each other meaningful looks. This was the first time we’d all be together as a “family,” and we’d agreed in the car not to let on about the meeting. Bill had told us that my father knew we’d come down and would be calling for the report, and I guessed this was the reason for my father’s uncharacteristic cheerfulness. The meeting, after all, had gone off without a hitch.
Whitney suddenly stood up and stamped the snow off his loafers onto the Berber carpet, as if marking his territory before Elisa returned.
Bobby laughed at his younger brother. “Nice. Now there’s going to be a big puddle in the middle of the goddamn carpet. Dad’s going to love that.”
“Better there than on my shoes,” Whitney said. But a moment later he picked up the chunks of snow and carried them into the kitchen. My father’s benevolent mood, he knew, especially toward him, was as changeable as the wind.
Beautiful objects adorned every surface in the room: an antique partners desk stood in a bay window with a gilt-framed painting by Gari Melchers on the adjacent wall. Tasteful patterned fabrics covered the upholstered furniture. Eighteenth-century walnut side tables held needlepoint coasters for drinks. The tree sparkled with old family ornaments and colored lights, just as it had when we were children.