I keep that small wooden box in my home office now, alongside Margaret’s original ledger, understanding it represents exactly the kind of ripple effect her original courage continues creating, reaching considerably further than either of us could have possibly imagined during those quiet, ordinary evenings she once spent carefully restoring old clocks in our garage workshop.
Renata remarried four years after her divorce from Desmond, a considerably quieter man named Julian who worked as an elementary school teacher, someone who’d never once, throughout their entire courtship, shown any particular interest in either my company’s assets or the foundation’s endowment.
“He reminds me of Mom, actually,” Renata told me, during their engagement celebration. “Quiet. Genuine. Considerably more interested in actually helping people than accumulating impressive things.”
