Page 80 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
Only one page this time. Simple, and with a signature line that hadn’t been filled in yet, because I couldn’t sign this one.
“Power of attorney,” she said slowly.
Here we went. Time to be persuasive without being overbearing. Fortunately, I’d thought it through. “Yeh. I won’t lie to you, I still want to be Karen’s co-guardian as well. It would give her security and you the backup you need, and give us a united front. That would be obvious to her, too, because it would be legal. Same reason I want to marry you. It’s not just a piece of paper, eh. When it’s official, it’s real. The guardianship takes a bit more, though. An application, a court proceeding. And you haven’t agreed to it, of course,” I hurried to add, seeing her stiffen. “But we do need to do this.”
“Why?”
“Well, let’s think about it.” I kept my voice perfectly level. Logic, and nothing more. “What if you’re out of town, or even across town? What if Karen’s taken ill, in hospital again? What if her school rings up when you aren’t available to say that she’s decided those stockings are perfect under her school uniform, or that she’s leading a hunger strike to protest the sexual politics of the Family Life class?”
“She already took Family Life.” Hope was clearly grasping at straws now, and I couldn’t quite see why.
“That’s right. She did. And now that she’s learned to put the condom on the banana, wouldn’t it help to have somebody else she can call? Wouldn’t it help for her to know that I’ll be there in a heartbeat if she needs me?”
She sighed and ran a hand over her forehead. “Yes. Of course it would. I know you’re right. I just feel…I suppose that it’s going to be tricky, being between the two of you. Today being a prime example.”
“You think so? I’d think it could be easier. Three more years to go here, and I can tell you for sure that there are going to be boys in them. I may know a wee bit more about that than you do, and be better prepared to deal with it, too.” I saw her hesitate, and went on, “You won’t be helping Karen by not telling her what to do, you know. She needs somebody to draw that line. Or better yet—she needs toseethat line, and to know exactly where it is, so we don’t have to keep drawing it as much.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know Karen, you mean? How do I know myself?”
“Hard head,” she suggested.
“Hard head,” I agreed. “I need you to draw the line, because otherwise, I’ll keep pushing until I’m well and truly over it and it’s too late to step back. I think Karen needs both of us to do that, and official makes it better.”
She picked up the paper, read it over again, and said, “What am I so afraid of? What you said makes sense.” Not as if she were asking me, though, so I didn’t answer, just waited. “I can revoke this, right?” she finally asked.
“Karen may not be the only one with a hard head,” I said, and Hope smiled, but still looked troubled. “Yes,” I said. “You can. The power is yours.”
Not something I’d ever said. Not even close.
The seconds ticked by, and I waited and asked myself why itwasso important.
Because they were my family, that was why. And I needed that to be real.
At last, when I thought she never would, Hope picked up the pen I’d left lying helpfully nearby, wrote in the date, and then paused with it hovering over the signature line. She took a breath, let it out, signed in one fast scrawl, then set the pen down as if it were burning her.
“There,” she said. “Done.” She stared at the paper for another minute, then turned to me and said, her voice full of wonder, “This is the first time in six years that I haven’t been alone. Since I was nineteen. This is the first. I can’t believe it. I can’t…”
Somehow, there was a lump in my throat. I gathered her into me, held her close, and said, “Six years is long enough. The six years are over.”
Hope
When Hemi and I stepped out of the lobby and into the July heat, I was still shaken.
It had felt momentous, signing that paper and seeing the other one, the one that wasdone,because Hemi had already taken care of it. Karen was going to college.
And I’d given somebody else power over her, the thing I’d been working and praying to avoid ever since my mother had gotten sick.
So many nights I’d lain awake, the cold fear gnawing at my belly as I’d envisioned her being taken away from me and hadn’t seen how I’d ever manage to avoid it. Days when Vincent had threatened to fire me. Days when there’d been a hundred ninety-four dollars in the bank account and a week to go until payday. The time when she was twelve and I was twenty, and we’d both gotten a hideous weeklong flu, one after the other, and I’d had no choice but to leave her home alone and beg Mrs. Alvarez, eighty-four and grouchy, to look in on her, because I’d had no more sick days left.
All the school holidays, the summer vacations when I’d left her home alone and thought,If something happens to her. If they find out, and they say I’m not adequate. And then she’s twelve, and she’s in foster care.
It had been worse than that, too. I hadn’tbeenadequate. But I’d been all she’d had.
I’d felt so close to the edge, always. Now, I wasn’t.Weweren’t. It was over. It was really over.
Except that “having somebody else” also meant “having somebody else with an opinion on what she should do, and whatweshould do.” And not just “an” opinion.Hemi’sopinion, which was about twice as powerful as a normal person’s, and could drive Karen into full rebellion if I weren’t careful. And then there was Hemi’s money, with the power it brought to make college happen, to make eye surgery happen. The power to change her life completely.
