Hazel floated around the house all morning, her feet five inches above the antique tiles. Dean would be here in an hour and she had given everyone an extra-long lunch today so they could sneak off to their river spot. A basket holding sandwiches and their tablecloth/picnic blanket was waiting by the back door. Dreaming of gurgling river waters and dappled shade, she waltzed into the kitchen to grab a coffee and came upon a fluttering Indigo.

“Mother? Are you okay?”

She felt a swell of anxiety in her chest. She'd seen her mother like this before. Although she seemed like a "happy-go-lucky, water runs off me like a duck's back" kind of woman, she didn’t handle stress well. Sometimes, something happened that sent her off the edge of reason, spinning her into a mini breakdown. Dark periods like these in Indigo's past were what had sent ten, twelve, and fourteen-year-old Hazel into panic mode. Although she’d spent most of her life mothering Indigo instead of the other way around, even she would be pushed to the limit when she had to handle a depressed Indigo all alone.

“I have to talk to you, sweetie. Can you sit down? Can I get you some coffee?” Her mother looked nervously toward the back door as she poured a cup of coffee with shaky hands. “Is Dean coming?”

“He should be here soon. Mother, what’s going on?”

Indigo put the coffee in front of Hazel, some sloshing over the rim and spilling onto a shopping list for Baldazzi's hardware store. She sat down.

“I might need money, sweetie.” Her mother’s voice was shaking as much as her hands.

Hazel took a deep breath and steeled herself. She wasn't sure what was going on here, but it would not be good. “But Mother, you said you got money in Maria Zanre’s will. You said it was plenty. In fact, we're relying on those funds to finish the renovations. What happened to that?”

“Well…” Indigo stuck her thumb in her mouth and chewed on it. Hazel reached over and gently pulled it from her mouth. Her mother looked like a child caught doing something unforgivable. “Apparently, I was supposed to complete some paperwork, and I forgot. See, there was another name on Maria's bank account. Another relative. It was my job to do the paperwork to remove that name when I got a hard copy of the will and I, um… I didn’t. So this other person they went to the bank and this person, they...,” Indigo’s breath hitched. Hazel knew the sound. She was about to cry. “They…”

“They withdrew all the money from the account,” Hazel finished for her, letting her forehead drop forward and bang against the kitchen table. “Oh, Mother,” she moaned, not looking up, “was it Stefano? Please don’t tell me it was Stefano.”

“Was what me?” Stefano walked into the kitchen dressed for work. Dean had bought him a leather tool belt of which he was very proud. He wore it everywhere.

Indigo stood, rushed to Stefano's side and grabbed his arm. "It wasn’t Stefano!”

“What wasn’t me?” Stefano asked again.

“It seems Indigo has lost all of the money for the renovations.”  The cool table felt good on Hazel’s head and she decided that she was just going to stay there today. "Who took it, Indigo? Can I talk to them?"

Indigo moved to crouch next to her and rubbed her back. “Oh, honey, don’t call me Indigo. Mother is bad enough but when you call me Indigo, I know you’re furious with me!”

Hazel didn’t want her mother to think she was mad at her, because truthfully, she wasn’t. Frustrated, maybe. Sad, yes. But she'd stopped being upset with Indigo about money matters years ago; the day she'd realized money was like sand in her mother’s fingers. She'd known then it would always be her responsibility to look after her mother. So she'd done that. She'd handed over cash whenever Indigo had asked for it, mostly to her own detriment. Now look where she'd ended up; no savings (she’d used the last of it to fly here), no income, and extremely limited prospects. But it wasn’t her mother’s fault. It had been Hazel’s choice to enable Indigo's spendthrift ways.

She lifted her head from the table just in time to see Stefano give Indigo an intimate, worried glance. Her mother didn't even notice it. He knew something. “What, Stefano?”

“What, what?” Stefano asked.

She stood up and took a step toward him. He took a step back.

“You know something. What do you know? What’s going on?”

"Non lo so. I know nothing. I'm just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" He didn’t answer, just stared at his feet. He was struggling not to cry and suddenly Hazel felt like an ogre. She was towering over him like a schoolmaster. Stefano didn't know anything. How could he? She was desperate and taking it out on him. "Sorry, Stefano. Forget it."

Indigo was back at the table now and sniffling, so Hazel walked over and put a hand on her back. "Don't worry, Mother. We'll figure something out. We have to. I need to sell this house and get us home to Jacksonville."

"Dean has money," Indigo mumbled. "You could ask him."

Hazel stopped rubbing and stepped away from her mother. A surge of anger ran through her. A typical Indigo response, just get other people to solve your problems.

"I will not ask Dean, Mother. Okay? And you, under no circumstances, will mention this to him. Got it? Dean has enough problems of his own without taking ours on. I can take care of myself. And you. I always have. Just give me time to think."

"Ssshhh," Stefano hissed and there was the sound of steps at the back door.

“Holy moly did someone die in here? Everyone’s face is so long. I brought brioche!” Dean strolled in and dropped a buttery bag on the table. No one said anything.

“We might have a problem,” Indigo said, watching Hazel closely for her reaction.

Hazel looked up and smiled at Dean brightly. “We don’t have a problem. No problem.”

“What problem?” Dean look around the room confused. “Is the house falling down or something?”

Indigo stood and faced Dean with an anxious look still on her face and said, "It's just..."

“Mother,” Hazel interrupted through clenched teeth, “I said, we don’t have a problem.”

Hazel smiled again at Dean, grabbed the basket by the door, and swept him out of the house. He looked back over his shoulder, confused, but she was moving too fast for him to manage another question.

They had a problem, a big one. Without funds they might last another week on the house renovations before needing more supplies. Dean could not find out. She could handle it. She knew he had money and would offer it easily, but she wouldn’t have him feeling obligated to help her.

Hazel would find out who this third person was later and try to speak to the lawyer about it, but she knew how the legal system worked. It could take years to get that money back even if it had been illegally withdrawn. She needed more money now. She'd call Liz. Hazel had been trying her best to leave her in peace and wait for her to call first, but she was running out of time. She would call Liz and she'd ask for an advance. Now that Stefano had uncovered the nightmare that was Samuel, she'd be getting her project back any minute. Liz wouldn’t turn her down. She only needed enough to finish the house. Once she got enough cash to finish the house and they sold it, she could pay Liz back and have enough left over for the equity buy-in. She didn’t need to drag Dean into this. She was twisted up enough in his life already without adding a loan to the mix. Plus, money ruined everything.