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I waited impatiently while he read for a seeming eternity. Eleanor’s hand crept onto my knee, and I looked down, realizing I was jiggling it up and down with a frenetic energy. “You’re shaking the whole floor,” she whispered with a smile.
“Okay.” Jerry pulled his glasses off and focused on us. “The trusts are supposed to be released in increments when you’re twenty-five, thirty-three, and forty years of age.”
“But…” Twenty-five was still several years away. I couldn’t wait that long. Eleanor couldn’t wait that long.
“However,” he continued. “I think I may be able to get some kind of dispensation for the first portion of it, given your unique situation. If we can cite emancipation or prove parental death, negligence, or abandonment, we may be able to cite necessity.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Whatever we need to do; just please get the necessary paperwork started. All of our assets are frozen, Jerry. We’re on our way to Virginia to stay with an uncle, but that is a temporary situation. Please—” I stretched a hand across his desk, flattening it in front of him. He looked from the computer screen to my face.
For the first time since this entire mess had started, I felt like I had his full attention.
“Please help us.”
He nodded; his mouth set in a tight line. “You have my number. Stay in touch, and I’ll provide you with updates. It won’t be an overnight process, but I’ll get it done.” He rose, and we followed suit. “You girls be careful.”
A week later Eleanor and I were reluctantly ensconced in the spare bedroom of our uncle’s trailer in Virginia. We had to pay hell to get here, the temporary custody situation I had in New York not transferring to another state. Social services working between New York and Virginia gave temporary custody of Eleanor to my uncle, which baffled me until the Virginia case worker cited the fact that I was jobless.
“Get a job with a steady check, and secure a stable home environment, and we’ll revisit the custody arrangement,” she said, looking with some distaste at my uncle’s trailer. I had the sense she wasn’t impressed with the scent of weed that permeated the furniture, the dishes piled around the kitchen, or the mysterious stain on the far wall.
I vowed to do as she said as quickly as possible and get Eleanor and me both in a better place.
My uncle lived in a tiny town called Cold Spring, aka Bumfuck Egypt. I spent the first week settling in—getting Eleanor enrolled in the local high school, scouting area real estate for something inexpensive I could apply the tiny portion of my trust that would be released to me in thirty days, and applying to practically every college in the state.
The chances of acceptance plus a scholarship at this late date were slim to none, but I sent the applications in regardless, knowing they were my likeliest route to the well-paying job I would need to take custody of Eleanor.
And then I waited.
I took a job at a fast-food restaurant to pass the hours during the day, washed my uncle’s dishes, and watched him grimly in the evenings.
He was a perv. He never did anything, but his eyes tracked my sister with greedy intent when he thought I wasn’t looking. At night, we slept with a chair wedged beneath the doorknob of the bedroom door.
And then I found the farmhouse.
I discovered it by accident one afternoon, as I was jogging down a different route from my usual one. The two-lane road quickly turned into one-lane, bisecting fields on either side and the occasional smattering of farm buildings and homes.
I ran by a For Sale sign, glanced briefly to the side, and ran on. Then I stopped, turned in a circle, and ran back.
The house was barely visible from the road, just a worn red metal roof barely visible from the bottom of a long drive. I hovered, jogging in place, undecided whether to go down the driveway for a better look.
The crunch of tires on asphalt jarred me into jumping over to the side.
A pale blue Chevy pulled alongside me, an ancient man at the wheel. He leaned out the window, peering at me with shrewd eyes the same color as his vehicle. “Hey, there, gal.”
“Hi,” I returned. “I was just looking at this house. Do you happen to know who owns it?”
“I do,” he answered, smiling. “That would be my house.” He stuck a wrinkled hand toward me. “Tom Chester.”
Two first names.I’d always liked people with two last or two first names. They were unique. I wiped my palm on my shorts and shook his. “I’m Jude. Jude Tiernay. Would it be okay if I walked down the driveway and took a look at it?”
“Sure, sure. Hop in, and I’ll take you through it real quick.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to keep you from anything.”
“Not doing a thing.”
Excitement stirred in my belly. I walked around and climbed into the passenger seat, careful to avoid the cracked vinyl against my thighs, and Tom drove us down the drive to his house.
It was small, with a sagging porch, and a roof that needed repair, and a door that hung crookedly on its hinges. Everything about it was weathered to a dull gray, including the bushes out front that collected dust from the long gravel driveway. The windows were coated with a thick layer of grime, and everything about it screamed “you’re crazy! Run!”
