“Yeah, well, from everything you’ve told me, I wouldn’t want to go up against them,” she said, reaching back and pulling her hair out of an elastic band. She batted her eyes at me in question. “Pretty please?”
I laughed. “You know all you have to do is ask.”
She reached to her bedside table and grabbed a brush, handing me it and the elastic.
I ran the brush through her hair several times, the movement soothing to both of us. When Viv found out in high school that I knew how to do a French braid, I had become her insta-bestie.
I brushed through her long hair one more time, then began dividing the strands up to make the braid. I used to braid my Mom’s hair for her all the time. I wasn’t sure why it was exactly, but all the women I knew who had long hair had trouble doing a French braid on their own heads. They all said it just never seemed to come out right.
“So, are you going to see him again?” she prompted. I blushed as I braided her hair.
“…Yes…I guess. I mean, they invited me to Sunday night D&D. That’s a good sign.”
“Nice! I have to work Sunday night, anyway! It should be one of my first non-trainee nights. You’ll have to tell me how it goes!” she insisted.
“Who else would I tell? You’re my best friend,” I insisted, tying off the braid.
She turned around and hugged me.
“What’s your schedule tomorrow?” I asked. We tried to plan our schedules out on the days we might both need to drive somewhere. She began pulling up her calendar when my phone pinged.
We looked at each other in shock. Viv was the only one I ever got text messages from.
I unlocked the phone and looked at it, only to laugh. It was a picture of a t-shirt with the saying “I have red hair because the universe knew I should come with a warning label.” A text followed immediately.
KAINE: Hey Red! Thanks for being duped by my brother. See you Sunday. :)
I blushed and shared the photo with Vivian.
“I think he’s a keeper, Nick,” she said.
I nodded. I couldn’t agree more. I just didn’t know if I had the right to keep him.
The next day dawned bright and cheerful. Ugh. Weather shouldn’t get the chance to have a mood. I rolled out of bed and looked at the clock. It was 11 a.m. already. I wasn’t working today, but I still had things I needed to get done.
I yawned as I padded out to our kitchen in my bare feet and pajama pants. Sunlight streamed through the window and I paused to leaf through the mountain of junk mail that had accumulated on the kitchen counter. We’d only lived there a few short weeks. How we got on all these mailing lists was beyond me.
I sorted through it, disposing of the offers for car loans, credit cards, and the occasional bill. I set the bills down in the divider that I was using for everything we needed to follow up on. I had just pinned a couple of the bills to a cork board near the phone when my eyes fell on the heavy paper of the letter from the attorneys notifying me of my mother’s death.
I had been putting off contacting them for weeks, now. After the initial shock of her death, I had only skimmed the documents they had included. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, I was just reluctant to call them. Part of it was the fear my father would be able to trace me through them. Part of it was that it would make her death too real. I was afraid that finding out more about how she had died would stir up all the guilt, pain and loss that I had felt that night.
The paper was a heavy, cream color. I unfolded it, my fingers brushing across the gold-foil print of the letterhead. Alexander R. Young & Martin L. Zachary , Attorneys at Law. There was a phone number and email address that followed.
I thought about it for a few minutes, then made the decision. I picked up my phone and dialed the number. I held my breath for a moment, then hit the dial button. I looked at my fingers and realized absently that they were shaking. I squeezed them into fists, then put the phone up to my ear and listed to the ringtone.
“Zachary and Young, how may I assist you?” I heard a woman answer on the other end.
“Um, hi…” I began. “I’m calling about a letter I received from your firm.”
“May I ask your name, sir?” she asked.
“…Before I give it to you, I need to ask, um, if what I talk to you about is, uh, private?” I felt like an idiot stammering over my words. “I mean, whatever I talk to you about, it’s can’t be shared with anyone else, right?”
“Well,” the woman began, “I think you may be referring to attorney-client privilege. That generally protects you in the event that we are representing you for something. Are we currently representing you in a legal matter, sir?”
I nodded, then realized I was an idiot and she couldn’t hear the rocks shake inside my head.
“I— I think so. I mean, you represent… representedmy mom,” I managed to get out, but the next sentence came out in a whisper. “Or rather, her estate.”
