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Chapter 19
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“Don’t say anything,” I said to my mother when I walked back into the kitchen.
She sat, smugly drinking her evening tea. “Why would I say a thing? It’s not like my beautiful daughter finally came to her senses and took my advice.”
“By saying that, you are saying something,” I muttered, lifting the stack of bills she must have picked up while pretending she wasn’t spying on us. “I can’t believe you just let all of these pile up.”
“Someone is changing the subject,” she sang, leaning over the counter and wiggling her eyebrows. “It was Disney, right? When you kiss a prince, do you see fireworks?”
I rolled my eyes so hard my head felt heavy. “First, I don’t think Disney created that notion. Second, it was just a kiss, Mom, so chill. Can we talk about these now?”
“Why would you want to be depressed over bills when we could be gushing about boys?”
“Because I’m not six. I’m an adult. I’m adulting.” Why was she like this?
“You aren’t six, but you definitely need some se—”
“Mom!” I cut her off. “You’re supposed to tell me to be careful so I don’t get my heart broken.”
“If anyone does any heartbreaking, it will be you. Poor Gale has been bending over backward for your attention—”
“You owe a half-million in lawyer fees?” I snapped, reading the first bill. Quickly, I opened the second one just to see more zeroes, each one of them worse than the last to the point where my stomach began to churn. “How do we owe so much!”
“See what I mean? Now you’re depressed,” she joked, but this was serious.
“Mom, we owe millions. How can you be joking right now? Look at all of these mortgages, late fees, car notes, what?”
“Why are you so shocked?” she questioned, still too calm for the situation we were in.
“What do you mean, why am I shocked? Look at these.”
“Our bills are exactly the same as they were last year and the year before. But the only difference now is your father is not taking care of them. You are. Welcome to the land of adulting. You are late. The richer you are, the higher your bills are. Just because you are not spending money doesn’t mean you do not have bills. All the assets your father left still need to be run and paid. Now that Augusta has her share, the rest is on you to take on or give up. That is how this works.”
I pushed her to mom mode, and now I was getting ripped a new one for it. She was all but saying I was spoiled. She was right. My father did take care of everything. It allowed me to focus on my music, and I had fooled myself into believing I was independent when I truly was a trust-fund baby.
“What do I do? The money I made from my shows can’t even cover the lawyers’ fees.”
“Get. Married. Like your younger sister wisely did. You don’t have to be in love with him. You at least like him. That is more than you have had with anyone in a long while,” she directed. I wanted to bring up what Yvonne had brought up to me before.
I wanted to ask her about my father. But I couldn’t. How could I? What right did I have to know?
“Do not overthink everything, Odette. You like him, obviously. Don’t make it so hard on yourself,” she said to me, getting off her chair and walking away.
Ugh.
