Page 7 of Family Bonds: Carter & Avery

She and Josie unpacked the kitchen items and made a list of all the food they needed to buy. Tons since she didn’t pack much. Anything in her pantry at home, she packed to have some staples, but nothing else. So that meant a cartful today to get them through the next few days and then she’d go back a few more times this week.

When the movers left, she knew Josie was hungry. It was past lunchtime and the most the two of them had was a granola bar and some chips that she’d unpacked. They’d gotten up early and had breakfast, but that was so long ago.

“Can we go out to lunch?” Josie asked. “I’m hungry.”

“We can,” she said. “Because grocery shopping on an empty stomach means more pennies out of my wallet.”

Josie laughed. “Are we going to be okay? You’ve got a new job. You own it, right? Krissy at daycare said that new practices take time and that we won’t have any money.”

Just another reason to get out of Danbury. Too much gossip around them and words said to a little girl that shouldn’t be.

“We have plenty of money,” she said.

No reason to tell Josie about the lawsuit that was settled out of court. She’d originally had no intention of suing the company of the truck driver that ran a red light and killed her friend. There were life insurance policies and social security funds that would go into an account for Josie and build for years for her future. But when she’d found out the driver had several DWI’s and the company was aware and he was drunk again, she felt she had no choice but to get some form of justice for her best friend’s daughter.

Part of the reason she knew these things was because of Colleen’s job at the City of Danbury. Many pushed her to pursue the lawsuit. She didn’t have the energy, physically or mentally, to go through with it but had been told it’d settle out of court easily enough.

It had after five months of going back and forth and Josie netted over five million dollars. As Josie’s guardian, she had control of those funds but had no intention of touching them.

Colleen’s family might find out about the settlement and want to fight her for custody even though Colleen was smart enough to have legal documents.

Colleen’s mother and sister flew in for the funeral, but they were strangers to Josie and no one even came to her or brought up the custody. Almost like they were happy it wasn’t left to them.

It was better in her eyes, but if they knew about the five million, would that change? She wasn’t taking the chance.

“So we aren’t poor?” Josie asked.

Avery laughed. “No,” she said. She had more than enough money put away and the island made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

There were patients lined up ready to come to her clinic. She even had one vet tech hired that she’d meet in person in two days along with someone to run the front desk.

It was going to be crazy at first and she’d need more staff, but Laine had stepped up and run ads with her and met with the people in person while Avery did the interviews over the phone.

The fact she didn’t feel so alone here was huge, even if only having one person.

She was trying to listen to her mother about not having to do it all on her own, but she couldn’t seem to break away. She never wanted to ask anyone for help. She got that from her mother.

“Then let’s go get lunch.”

They left and found a cafe close to the grocery store. The warm August breeze felt good enough to sit outside while they ate their sandwiches and fries. The two of them laughed and joked about getting good tans and she felt great about the place they were in. Both the location and mentally.

Hours later their kitchen was set up, food was put away, the TVs were working and Josie was looking exhausted, but she wanted to check out the clinic.

If she were alone, it would have been the first thing she did, but she wasn’t and had to put Josie first.

The part-time vet that was coming to the island once a week agreed to stay on for a month and she was thankful for that, but she was going to make all the changes she could. After all, she bought this practice for almost pennies since it wasn’t much of a practice.

The building was owned by the island and the rent was being waived for two years. Even the rent of the house was much less than she figured it’d be, but Laine had told her they were doing whatever they could to get someone here full time.

If it was a bad decision, she’d move, but she committed to at least two years knowing Josie was young enough and another move in elementary school wouldn’t be too bad.

“Let’s go look at my new place of employment,” she said to Josie. “I’m going to see if the bus can pick up and drop you off there daily.”

“Yay,” Josie said. “So I can play with the animals too?”

“We’ll see,” she said.

Since the clinic was only two houses down from where she was renting, they walked. It looked to be an old house that had been converted. Just a one-story home and it was small, but there was a building in the back too that she was told could be turned into kennels if need be for boarding. That was money she’d have to put into it and she would if she saw the need.

---