I got to thinking. Toni Castaneda had been Trapp's cardturner before me, before she asked, "Are you sure?" But how could she have taken him to the bridge studio during the week? School had only just ended.
"She's homeschooled," my mother explained. "Uncle Lester taught her bridge as one of her courses. They wouldn't let a girl like her into a real school. She'd freak out!"
"Why? What's wrong with her?"
"She's nuts. The whole family is nuts. Her mother, her grandmother. Did you know they could be extremely wealthy, but Sophie threw their money in the garbage? And I don't just mean a few million dollars. I'm talking real money."
I always thought a few million dollars was real money. "What do you mean she threw it in the garbage?" I asked.
"Just what I said," said my mother. "In the garbage!"
She then explained that Sophie Castaneda's father had been Henry King, one of the wealthiest men in America. "Sophie didn't appreciate her parents and all they did for her. She ran away from home when she was fifteen, and when she turned eighteen she legally divorced them."
"You can do that?" I asked.
"Don't be smart," said my mother.
Sophie eventually married Martin Castaneda, and they had a daughter, Toni. Sophie had refused to let her father ever see his granddaughter, or even talk to her on the telephone.
Sophie's father's lawyers sent her a letter, trying to arrange a meeting between grandfather and granddaughter. They offered Sophie five hundred thousand dollars for a onetime visit, and one million dollars per year after that for regular monthly visits. In addition, her dad promised to include both daughter and granddaughter in his will.
It was the letter that Sophie had thrown in the garbage. She sent a short note back to the lawyers. My daughter is not for sale . When Henry King died, years later, he didn't leave them a penny.