“You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” she asked.
I shook my head, though I really wasn’t sure at all. “That’s okay. Hopefully I won’t be long.”
Tasha dropped her bag and sat on the lowest step while I ascended, my stomach in knots.
I must have looked shell-shocked when I came out an hour later.
“You’ll never believe …” Tasha said, stopping when she looked up at me. “Cassie? What’s wrong?”
I’d expected my meeting with Mr. Koumaras to be like the court dramas Nan had liked. A dry recitation of heretofores and aforementioneds. It had started out like that—sound mind and body, on this date of blah, blah, blah, a listing of assets. I was her sole beneficiary.
“Quite a nice sum she’s left you,” Mr. Koumaras commented, meeting my eyes for a reaction. “Four hundred eighty-two thousand dollars.”
Almost half a million dollars. I’d long suspected Nan had money socked away, though I would never have guessed such a ridiculous amount. Someday I’d probably be excited about it. Right now, I was just glad it was enough that I didn’t have to think about it.
And then he’d dropped the bombshell: the guardianship.
“The what?” Tasha said as we sat on the steps out front.
“I know,” I said, my head down, fighting tears. “That’s what I said.”
It was temporary, Mr. Koumaras explained. Ninety days mandated by the will. The inheritance would be held until it was completed.
“I don’t even care about the money,” I told Tasha, still trying to sort it all out. “But without it, I don’t have anything to live on. He was talking about bills and mortgage and insurance.” I shook my head. “I hadn’t really thought about that kind of stuff.”
“Maybe that’s why Nan did it.”
“Yeah, I guess, but …”
“What?”
I was angry that Nan hadn’t told me, but maybe it did make sense to have some help. “Okay,” I’d said to Mr. Koumaras. “Let me talk to my friend Tasha. I bet her parents would do it. Or maybe Agnes …”
He held up a hand. “Nan already designated a guardian.”
“Oh. Well, which is it?” Why hadn’t Tasha’s parents said anything when I’d been over for dinner? Or Agnes the gazillion times she’d sat weeping on the sofa?
“Neither.” He looked at his papers. “Nan designated Andrea Soto.”
“Who?”
He turned to another page and read, “Andrea Soto, Fifty-four Weston Avenue, apartment twelve, Bering, Kansas. Ms. Soto is the only sister of Daniel Renfield, Cassie’s father. She is Cassie’s only living relative.”
My dead father’s sister. Who I’d never met. That’s when the tears started, stinging and hot at the corners of my eyes.
“I don’t know her,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I didn’t even know my father had a sister. Nan can’t have meant for me to … what? Go live with her?” At that, I started crying for real, the idea of leaving my home to live with a total stranger just too much. “This lady is not going to take care of some girl she doesn’t know from a hole in the wall. Nan never talked about this … this Andrea Soto. She probably has no idea I even exist.”
“Oh, no, she knows,” he said softly, shuffling more papers and trying to ignore my tears. “She knows and has agreed to take you in.” He’d tapped the page, then placed it neatly at the edge of the desk, facing me.
“Oh my God,” Tasha gasped as we sat on the steps outside the lawyer’s awful mousehole of an office. “How soon do you have to go?”
“Next week,” I said. “He said I could wait until school was out or whatever, but if I do, I’ll miss the beginning of next year here. I’d have to start in Kansas.” I wiped my eyes. “I figured I should just get it over with.”
Mr. Koumaras had assured me there were no other strings and that I’d probably be granted emancipated minor status without much trouble, what with the inheritance. Turning seventeen soon after would help, but wasn’t a requirement. We’d only have to prove I was able to take care of myself. “It’s not so bad, is it, Cassandra?” he’d said.
Yeah, it’s great, I thought. Nan is gone, I see almost-dead people, and I have to leave my home and friends to live with an aunt I never knew about for the summer. In Kansas of all places. Terrific. “No, not so bad, I guess,” is what I’d said out loud, trying to smile, but failing miserably.
“But what about finals?” Tasha asked, looking shell-shocked now too.
“He’ll take care of it. Call Principal McCarthy.”
“But … why, Cassie?”
“Why what?”
“Why would Nan do it? Send you out there?”
“Who knows?” I shrugged tiredly. “But I don’t have much choice, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“But you’re going to miss the play-offs and Matt Glassman’s party and—”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t remind me.”
“I’m sorry, Cassie.”
“Me too.” I took a deep breath, trying to think positive thoughts about the next three months. Nan had often said you can live with anything as long as it’s temporary. I hoped she was right.
Chapter 7
The girl next to me picked up a magazine, then a minute later put it down. Her pale forehead was glistening. She looked at her watch and sighed, the exhale of a person barely able to catch her breath.
“What time are we supposed to land?” she finally asked.
“Two twenty,” I said.
She nodded curtly, gripping her armrests as the plane jostled.
“Are you scared of flying?” Dumb question, I thought. Is the sky blue?
She glanced at me and nodded briefly, her color blanching at another bump.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I told her with total confidence. “The plane will land safely.”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.
In fact it was. A small comfort of the mark—the only one I’d found so far. “Really. It’s going to be okay.”
She looked at me hard, but I noticed her grip on the chair loosen, a slight flush of the knuckles. She smiled weakly. “You’re very convincing.”
I smiled back and returned to my book, but I was too anxious to read. Had been most of the flight.