“Mom said you have to go.”
“Wow. Using the dead-parent card before nine in the morning?”
“It’s powerful.”
I laughed.
“Go to class,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And pick me up at three.”
“I know.”
“And we’re getting ice cream.”
“Nobody agreed to that.”
“I did.”
She hung up.
I stared at the phone.
Then I looked through the classroom door.
A year earlier, I’d believed my life was over.
College was gone.
My parents were gone.
My childhood was gone.
I had thought becoming Vicky’s guardian meant sacrificing every future I might have had.
Howard and Denise had believed something similar.
They thought tragedy had left us weak.
They thought grief had left us helpless.
They thought a nineteen-year-old kid and a seven-year-old girl would be easy to push aside.
They thought money was the strongest thing my parents had left behind.
They were wrong.
The trust mattered.
The recordings mattered.
