Page 2 of Doctor Grump

I usually combated her attitude by being as nice to her as possible. It was the only way to disarm her.

“And you’re right,” I said. “I am completely pathetic without you. So you better not go anywhere anytime soon.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t be dying.”

But of course, that had been a lie.

In her defense, I did not doubt that she hadn’t expected to die right now.

But her disease had been too advanced, and she passed away one day in her sleep.

The jingle of a phone interrupted the solemn speech, and several eyes turned to glare at us once more.

“Jesus, Eugenia,” my father muttered as my mother ignored him, pulling out her phone. She looked down at it, and all of a sudden, her face lit up.

“Oh, good news,” my mother whispered suddenly and glanced at me with a bright glint in her eyes. “Especially for you, Piper.”

“For me?” I asked quizzically.

“Yes,” she said. “It seems the count will be arriving soon, and he is very excited to meet you again in person.”

Dread sank into my stomach.As if today couldn’t get any worse.

The count was an elderly man, an old friend of the family that I met once during one of the numerous family gatherings. Of course, being my usually stupidly friendly self, I introduced myself to the man and kept him company during the event. I felt bad because he had seemed so awkward and out of place, and I tried to ease the awkwardness with meaningless conversation. Apparently, that had been enough for him to fall madly in love with me, according to my mother.

And now she had it in her head that I would marry the count so that they had a chance at his enormous fortune.

I thought it was some kind of joke at first, but as the days passed, it became less and less funny.

“Mom, I don’t think I can—” I said, but she glared at me.

“No, don’t give me any more excuses, Piper,” she chastised. “I’ve had enough of that. You will be meeting with him. Who knows, you might even like him and end up being the one to save our family from this debt once and for all.”

“Oh please, Mom, I doubt the entire family is riding on the minuscule chance that the count wants to marry me. Besides, I’m not going to marry the man for his money. How antiquated is that?"

“The count will definitely marry you,” my mother said, deliberately ignoring everything else I said. “The man couldn’t shut up about you. And as you know, he has a….” She ran a scanning and vaguely insulting eye over my figure. “A type. You are the spitting image of his ex-wife.”

“The one who died in an ‘accident.’” I put air quotes around the last word, and my mother rolled her eyes.

“Don’t tell me about your ridiculous theories anymore. He didn’t kill his wife.”

“You don’t know that,” I said, feeling my frustration bubble up. “Dad—”

I turned to my father pleadingly for support, but he gave me a weak smile in response. “We’re all doing our best to stay afloat, honey. Your association with the count would go a long way to helping us get back on our feet.” The eye bags under his eyes were a testament to how hard he had been working to resolve our current monetary issues. He had basically turned into an errand boy for his half-brother, Fred, in hopes that once Fred inherited the majority of Judith’s fortune, he would get a sizeable cut.

“Yeah, Piper,” Patricia hissed. “We’re all trying our best. I’m sure if I were fat too, I would marry the count.”

“Patricia, that’s enough,” my father scolded, but he needn’t have. The truth was that my sister’s barbs barely hurt anymore. I had come to terms with my figure a while ago, and while my curvy size fourteen frame might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I knew it wasn’t ugly. Just a little on the chubby side.

And apparently, the count liked that. A lot.

And my family was willing to sell me off because of it.

I couldn’t lie; the disloyalty hurt. When my grandmother had still been alive, my father supported me against the whole marrying the count thing. At the time, I knew he hoped Judith would leave me portions of her fortune since they knew of her fondness for me, but I wasn’t so sure she left me much in the will. Not enough to cover our debts anyway. Judith had always made it clear that only her blood children would receive anything from her. And now everything hung in the balance.

“Alright,” Fred said, clapping his hands together. “We’ll now be moving on to the reading of the will.”

“Hang on,” my grandmother’s lawyer said. “We’re just waiting for one more person.”

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