…are married before your thirty-fifth birthday. If you’re not, it all goes to the charity he founded.”
My grandfather, a farmer, had built a small agricultural foundation that gave scholarships to kids from rural towns. His will said that if I married before thirty-five, I’d inherit his farmland, worth about $2.4 million. If not, the land would go to the foundation.
My thirty-fifth birthday was in five weeks.
“Your grandfather was old-fashioned,” the attorney, Mr. Shaw, said. “He worried about you being alone.”
My aunt, Barbara, had found a solution. She’d met Jonathan’s family through church. They were wealthy and eager to own farmland. The contract with my forged signature promised that if I married Jonathan, his family would buy half the land from me at a discount, and my aunt would receive a “finder’s fee” of $300,000.
Jonathan, it turned out, was a nice man who’d been told I’d agreed to “a practical marriage.” He was as horrified as I was. We had coffee together the next morning and laughed about the whole thing until we cried.
I didn’t get married. I didn’t go to the party. Mr. Shaw reported the forged contract.
On my thirty-fifth birthday, the land went to my grandfather’s foundation. Then the foundation’s board did something I didn’t expect. They offered me a job as its director. My grandfather had apparently left a note with his will: “If she doesn’t marry, give her the work instead. She’ll do more good with it.”
I run the foundation now. We give out forty scholarships a year. Jonathan donates every spring. My aunt doesn’t speak to me. I’m finally enjoying being single.
