“And yours?”
I smiled.
“I’m using part of it to buy a house.”
Vicky grinned.
“Yellow room!”
The reporters laughed.
“Apparently,” I said, “it needs a yellow room.”
Then I added:
“And we’re starting something called the Margaret and Thomas Peterson Family Advocacy Fund.”
Mercer looked at me.
That part had been my idea.
“What does it do?” a reporter asked.
“It helps young guardians and families who can’t afford legal representation in custody disputes.”
I thought about every nineteen-year-old who might someday sit where I had sat.
Terrified.
Broke.
Told that age automatically meant incompetence.
“It’ll also fund independent advocates for children in contested guardianship cases.”
Another reporter raised her hand.
“Was that planned by your parents?”
“No.”
I looked at Vicky.
“That one’s ours.”
We moved three weeks later.
Not into a mansion.
I didn’t want one.
Neither did Vicky.
We bought an old three-bedroom house twenty minutes from campus.
