That night, David and I sat at the kitchen table after Oliver was asleep and talked about what to do.
“She’s not babysitting anymore,” David said. “Not alone. Not for a while.”
“Agreed.”
“She doesn’t contact the school. Ever. Any concern about Oliver comes to us directly. We already put that in writing at the school.”
“Yes.”
“And she doesn’t talk to Oliver about any of this. Not one word.”
I nodded. Then I said what I’d been thinking all day.
“David, what about the 529?”
He looked at me.
“She’s the owner of the account,” I said. “Not us. Not Oliver. That’s how she set it up. And the owner of a 529 can change the beneficiary whenever she wants. She can take Oliver off it. She can even close the account and take the money back herself, if she’s willing to pay the taxes and the penalty.”
“She’d never do that.”
“David. She called his school and told them I wasn’t his mother.”
He was quiet for a long time.
“You think she’ll use it,” he said. “The college fund. As leverage.”
“I think she’s used it as leverage since the day he was born,” I said. “‘Grandma’s taking care of your college, because Grandma loves you most.’ Every birthday. Every Christmas. Have you ever noticed she says it loudest when I’m in the room?”
David put his face in his hands.
“So what do we do?”
“We open our own,” I said. “Tomorrow. A 529 in our name, with Oliver as the beneficiary. We put in what we can. If your mother keeps hers going, wonderful. Oliver gets both. But if she ever takes it away, or holds it over his head, or over ours, it won’t matter. He’ll still go to college. Because his parents made sure of it.”
The next day, on my lunch break, I opened an Indiana CollegeChoice 529 account online in our names, with Oliver as the beneficiary. We transferred $2,500 from our savings to start it, and set up an automatic deposit of $150 a month from our checking account.
Our accountant, a friendly woman named Mrs. Patel, mentioned that Indiana gives a state income tax credit for contributions to a 529 plan.
“It’s twenty percent of what you put in, up to a limit,” she said. “You’ll get some of it back on your state taxes.”
That night, I logged in and looked at the account. Oliver Harper. Balance: $2,500.00.
It wasn’t $41,000. But it was ours, and nobody could take it away.
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