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I gathered everything as fast as I could and asked Camden to take me home with him.
The ride back to Murdock with my brother was quiet and awkward, neither of us saying much.
Over the next few days, Mark tried to call and text several times, but I didn't answer. My brother finally decided he wasn't going to deal with my ignoring him anymore and showed up at my house to talk about it.
I cut him off before he could really start. I didn't want to get into it. Not with him, not with anyone. It had happened, it was over, that was enough. There was no point in dwelling on it at this point. Mark and I just needed to keep our distance.
But a few weeks later as I stared at the stick in my hand and tried to process the two pink lines on the screen, I realized I didn't really have that choice anymore.
18
MARK
I hung up the phone and set it down on the counter, pursing my lips to one side and staring at the screen. She wanted to speak to me. In person. What would she possibly need to speak to me in person for unless it was about why she had disappeared for three weeks?
Deciding I should at least look presentable, I ran a hot shower and got cleaned up from my daily workout before picking out some decent clothes.
I headed over to her office and noticed there was only one other car besides hers in the parking lot. Curiosity eating me up, I went to the door and rapped on it a couple of times before trying the handle. It was unlocked.
I opened the door and stood in the doorway, peering inside of the lobby and not believing what I was seeing. It was my Aunt Judy, sitting in a chair across from Carmela. Aunt Judy looked just like I remembered her from the last time we had been in the same room, years before, only older. She had her hair permed and piled high on her head in a style that looked like a poor imitation of Marge Simpson. She wore a lime green dress and jacket that looked like it had come out of the seventies and a pearl necklace that gleamed so white against her grossly dark artificial tan that it almost hurt to look at.
She looked up at me with her blue eyeshadow and too bright red lipstick curling up in a half-grimace, half-polite-smile and nodded.
“Mark, good to see you,” she said.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “What is she doing here?”
“Mark, I am right here,” Judy said. “You can speak directly to me.”
I took a moment to stare at her then turned my attention back to Carmela.
“Carmela?” I asked.
She sighed and glanced at Aunt Judy before adjusting her own skirt down near her knees and clearing her throat.
“Hello, Mark,” she said. “Please sit down.”
“I don’t think I want to sit,” I said. “I do enough sitting.”
“Please,” she said, and something in her voice got to me. My lips pushed together tightly, I walked across the room, past Aunt Judy, to take a seat on the other side of Carmela.
Carmela cleared her throat again and fiddled with the papers in front of her for a moment before looking me directly in the eyes. There was reluctance in that look, like she didn’t want to but knew she had to look at me. Like she was doing all this under duress.
“I have been speaking with your aunt for a few days now,” she said. “She has been reconsidering her position about the practice.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, suddenly dumbstruck.
Judy had a thin smile on her face but was looking away. I couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or frustration, but I moved my attention back to Carmela. She was peering at me over the top of a manila envelope open in her hands. Slowly, she closed it and leaned forward, holding it out to me.
“After a lot of soul searching, she has decided that she no longer wants to contest the will. She agrees that you are the one who should be operating the clinic, and that if she wanted to lay claim to anything of her father’s, she would have done so a long time ago. She would rather have positive relations with her family than a practice she could not effectively run.”
“That’s right,” Judy said. “I’m sorry, Mark. I just… I didn’t know how to deal with losing my brother too. I felt like I lost my family, and that building and business was the only thing I had connecting me to them. But it was selfish of me to contest it, especially when you expected to take over and are an actual doctor. Miss Smith was telling me that you gave up your entire life in Austin to come here and take control of the family business. I guess with dedication like that, I should be happy to know that the family name will be done proud.”
