Over the fair loudspeaker, crackling through the heat, a voice asked my mother to report to the fair office, and Rick stood up from his lawn chair, because the state treasurers office had contacted the fair, and the college fund my grandfather set up was about to come to light.
For years my mother made me her free labor and told me my college fund ran out. This time the truth came from my professor, because Dr. Sullivan remembered my grandfather being proud of it.
My grandfather set up a 529 college fund for me and told my professor about it at my freshman orientation, and it did not run out, it was withdrawn in 2021, every penny, not for tuition but for a boat, a timeshare, and the funnel cake booth my mother made me work.
The printout in my backpack proved it. Dr. Sullivan told me to ask for the statements, and being a math major, I did, and the withdrawals were plain. He helped me write to the state treasurer, who called back last week.
Mom dropped my laptop in the fry grease and told me now I was free, sure I would come crawling back. She did not know the treasurer had already contacted the fair. She was still at the fryer when the loudspeaker asked for her.
Rick asked what I did. Math, I told him.
I drove home, borrowed a laptop, and Monday I sat my P exam, the first actuarial exam, and I passed, because Mom could ruin a laptop but not a math degree.
I have my first actuarial job now at an insurance company here, which is a fine irony, calculating risk for a living after the risk I grew up with. The misused 529 is with the state, on paper, where now youre free does not help her.
My grandfather, who set that fund up and was so proud, did not live to see me become an actuary, but he made sure I could, and my mother could not spend all of that away without it being found.
Youre a math major, ask for the statements, Dr. Sullivan told me. I asked. The numbers told the truth. And my mother stopped laughing before the loudspeaker finished paging her, because the math does not lie, and neither, in the end, did the paper trail.