“When is Jake coming over?”

Kelly looked up from the magazine she was reading to meet Fiona’s questioning eyes staring at her from the other side of the wooden coffee table. The kids were both coloring while they took a little timeout from the never-ending television marathons they’d been watching for days.

“I already told you that he’s not going to be back until Christmas, Fee.”

Fiona had two weeks off from school for winter break, and they were still in the first few days of it. Kelly wasn’t sure how she’d survive eleven more days without going insane. Mia had prescheduled four days off for Christmas, so she wasn’t around to offer Kelly a little reprieve from her nightmare. They just had to get through one weekend, including Christmas day, before she’d be back.

Kelly had been playing guardian for five months, and while things had settled down for a while, they didn’t seem to be getting any easier. The support system she’d established was in tatters, with her having spoken very little to Nina or Hannah since her quick retreat from Nina’s living room.

Hannah had tried to call her a handful of times, apologizing and offering to meet her and talk about things. Kelly didn’t think there was anything to talk about. She thought they were becoming friends but hearing that Hannah had warned Jake that Kelly was no good made Kelly feel horrible. She understood why the other woman would do it, given her past, but Kelly was trying hard to move forward. The fact that someone she thought was her friend didn’t think she could do it was a real blow to her self-esteem.

She hadn’t totally cut off communications with Hannah, since she still needed advice from time to time, but there weren’t going to be any more girls’ nights anytime soon. Nina hadn’t bothered to call. That wasn’t surprising.

The funny thing was that Kelly had been doing well when everything blew up. She was still figuring things out, but there’d been nothing that had even tempted her to take a hit, and most days, she was hitting at least a thousand calories. The scale still hovered a little over a hundred pounds, but that sure as hell beat the seventy pounds she once weighed.

“Why did he have to go to California anyway? We should’ve gone with him.”

The pout on Fiona’s face was evident in her voice. The little girl was in love with Jake, which Kelly couldn’t fault her for. He’d been spending a few hours a week hanging out at the house if his schedule allowed it. Somehow, even though Kelly knew he had plenty of other things to do, he showed up every night he didn’t have a game.

Kelly put her magazine down on the table next to the couch, then pulled the blue fleece blanket she had covering her legs up her body a little. The temperatures outside had been in the twenties for a week, making it even harder than usual for her to get warm.

“He had to go to California because it’s his job.”

“Why don’t you have a job? Mommy and Daddy had jobs.”

Fiona’s eyes squinted as her tone turned accusatory. Kelly sighed and returned the look. No matter what Kelly did, Fiona liked to find an issue with everything. They’d talked about why Kelly didn’t work, but her reasons were never good enough. It was hard for her to understand how impossible the six-year-old could be. The little girl should have been carefree, consumed with dolls and her coloring books.

It was hard to say whether her parents’ deaths prompted the hostility. Kelly had spent so little time with Fiona before then that she had no idea. When Kirsten called to talk about her life, she made everything seem so perfect. Brian was great. The kids were great. Work was great.

With all the stumbling blocks Kelly was confronted with daily, she found it hard to believe everything was really that great. She’d tried to get the scoop from Mia, but the woman was fiercely dedicated to her former employers. Anytime Kelly tried to get her to say something, she told her it was none of her business. Kelly didn’t understand the secrecy. Her sister and brother-in-law were dead. They weren’t going to get pissed at Mia for gossiping.

“I know your parents had jobs. Lucky for me, someone took care of my money when I was sick and invested it so now I don’t have to worry about working.”

It helped that part of the investment was in a clothing line that was doing well, and there were still people interested in the book Kelly had written while in rehab the last time. She hadn’t done it by herself. Her roommate was a writer and convinced her to put the stories she told about her life down on paper.

“Molly says you don’t work because you’re lazy.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. Fiona’s little best friend was who she blamed for at least half the sass she got. When the two of them got together, Kelly wanted to hide. She didn’t remember when she was that age, but either kids had really changed over the years, or she was dealing with two devil incarnates. She leaned towards the latter.

“Does Molly have a job?”

The question at least got a laugh out of Fiona, and the tips of her lips curved up slightly. Smiles from the girl were often few and far between, so it was nice to see something other than Jake made her smile.

“Of course, she doesn’t work. She’s too busy with school.”

“You’re in the first grade. How busy can you be? You don’t even have homework, so an after-school job seems easy enough to work into your schedule.”

Somehow, Kelly managed to say everything with a straight face. She wasn’t demented enough to think a six-year-old should have a job, but at that age, she understood the importance of work. After her father died, her mother had needed to work a couple of jobs to keep the mortgage payments up-to-date and food on the table.

“Well, then, maybe I’ll go to school too. Would that make me less lazy?”

Kelly had toyed around with the idea of taking classes online a few times. She hated school, and was never any good at it, but she thought maybe the classes would add a little structure. It’d been a long time since there was anything that even resembled structure in her life. Needing to take care of the kids offered a little. They were used to eating and doing things at certain times, so Kelly found herself on their schedule, which seemed to be helping her.

Thoughts of school were interrupted by a laughing Fiona. The girl clutched her side and fell back onto the floor, rolling around as she continued laughing.

“You’re too old to go to school,” she said as her giggles came to an end.

Simon probably had no idea what was going on, but he saw his sister found something hilarious, so he mimicked her. Kelly rolled her eyes at the negative reaction to her idea.

It’d been something she kicked around back in Texas, but never seriously. Her ex hadn’t fallen into a complete giggle fit when she brought it up, but he hadn’t seen the point. Of course, he’d ridden through college just to party on his father’s dime, so his opinion on the matter wasn’t the most trustworthy.

Narrowing her eyes a little, she stared at the pair of troublemakers until they were finished with their fun. It was hard to be mad at them when something she’d done had brought them even a moment of joy. They had both stopped asking when their parents were coming home but warming up to her was another story.

Simon had never been as angry as Fiona about Kirsten and Brian being gone and Kelly taking over their roles. That didn’t mean he didn’t show he was affected by it in other ways.

In the few days she’d spent with him before his parents’ deaths, there was this light in his eyes that disappeared as more days passed when his mom and dad didn’t come home. Kelly was afraid that light would never come back, but she saw a twinkle of it along with the smile on his face as he went back to coloring. It gave Kelly a little peace to think she hadn’t totally screwed the kids up in five months.

“Your mom was still in school at my age,” Kelly said.

Kirsten had Fiona two years before she finished law school. The news had surprised Kelly, who saw her sister more career-focused than family-focused, but Kirsten had been so excited about the fact she was having a baby. It didn’t change her focus on school, at least not that Kelly could see. The time around the pregnancy wasn’t exactly a good time for Kelly, so her perception of how things were wasn’t the clearest.

“Nuh-uh.”

A phone ringing kept Kelly from pushing to prove her niece wrong. Something in her chest fluttered as she sat up straighter and looked over at the phone on the table next to the couch. The magazine she’d put there covered her cell, so she pushed it out of the way, hoping to see Jake’s face staring up at her. He’d been kind enough to pose for her when she’d requested it. Since he was across the country, his dark eyes had appeared on her phone many times when he called to check in.

Sadly, Jake’s eyes weren’t what greeted her. It was a number she didn’t know. Swallowing the disappointment, she picked it up and answered.

“Hello.”

“Is this Kelly Martin?” a male voice asked.

Kelly’s nose crinkled as she let the idea that it was just a telemarketer settle in. She shouldn’t have answered and thought about hanging up but decided to play along for a minute. Fiona’s eyes were wide and staring in her direction, probably waiting for an indication it was Jake.

“This is she,” Kelly said with a sigh.

“Hi, Ms. Martin. This is Jerry Holcomb. We spoke after your sister’s death.”

The name was vaguely familiar. Kelly’s back went stiff as the recognition hit her. Holcomb was the guy who’d gone over Kirsten’s will with her.

“I remember,” she said hesitantly.

Her brain started firing off reasons why the lawyer would be calling her. When all the paperwork was signed, she thought that was the last she’d hear from him.

“Good, then I don’t have to reintroduce myself. I won’t beat around the bush, given that it’s Friday before Christmas, and I’d like to get home to my family. You said you wanted me to call if anything came up, and it seems something has. As you know, Kirsten’s will gave you custody of your niece and nephew, if both her and Brian were deceased.”

He paused after the sentence, waiting for some affirmation of that statement, apparently. It seemed to be a fact, and Kelly was sitting in a room with the kids, so she wasn’t sure why he wanted confirmation that she knew that.

“What’s changed? I asked repeatedly if you were sure, and you said the will was very specific.”

Kelly hadn’t read it herself. She was so messed up in the days that followed the news that she just went along with the motions.

“Your sister’s will was very specific. She wanted you to have guardianship of the kids and control the money left to them. It seems that the kids’ grandparents have decided to question that decision, though. They’ve filed to remove your guardianship based on you being unfit to take care of the kids.”

It felt like the blood rushed out of Kelly as she listened to his words. She’d assumed the grandparents would be the ones who took the kids, and she’d been fine with that. But, learning her sister had wanted her to have them, it burned that someone thought they could take Fiona and Simon away from her.

Looking at the kids in question, both back to coloring after Fiona must have realized it wasn’t Jake, Kelly couldn’t think of what would happen if she lost them. She got up from the couch as tears pricked her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the kitchen, not wanting the kids to hear the rest of the conversation.

“Can they do that?”

The fact that it sounded like they already had told her the question was redundant. The only questions she needed to worry about were what their chances of winning were and why it’d taken them so long to do it.

“Yes, they can, but they have to prove you’re unfit. They also have to deal with the issues of why your sister updated her will months before her death to make you the guardian. When they realize why she changed her will, they may drop it.”

If all they had to do was prove her unfit, Kelly didn’t have a good feeling about winning, no matter how optimistic Holcomb sounded. There was plenty of evidence on the internet and in her book to push a judge’s opinion against her. She couldn’t think of anything recent, other than the days around the funeral, but she wasn’t sure a few good years made up for the bad.

Rubbing her forehead, she let all the words process. He’d said something about circumstances and a will change.

“Kirsten changed her will?”

She knew the two had separate wills, which had surprised her a little. Both had indicated the kids got everything, but Brian’s hadn’t listed a guardian. It was odd, but Kelly had always assumed he just thought his parents were the only option, so writing them down wasn’t necessary. Thinking about it, it was more than a little odd. Why make a will if you weren’t going to name someone to take care of your kids?

“Yes. Their original wills were made when Kirsten was still pregnant with Fiona. They didn’t have anything more than debt at the time, but they thought with a legacy in the works, they should make sure there was no question who got all their future money. Guardianship wasn’t something they considered at the time. But, when Kirsten found out about Brian’s affair, she changed her will to make sure you got guardianship of the kids, so his parents wouldn’t.”

“Brian’s affair?”

The words came out a little louder than Kelly planned. She bit her tongue, listening for any sounds of the kids being able to hear her. When a kid didn’t suddenly appear, she thought she’d gotten away with the somewhat outburst.

“Apparently, she was planning on getting a divorce. She was just waiting to gather more proof of the affair, at least that’s what she told me when she asked me to help with the will amendment. I don’t know where things stood on that front, because she insisted on drafting the papers herself. I imagine his parents aren’t going to want that information coming out, though.”

Kelly heard him take a breath as her brain tried to process everything. He spoke again before she got a chance to even begin.

“I’ve gotten the sense from Kirsten that they care a lot about family image. Brian’s dad is in Congress or something. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but there was definitely an indication they wouldn’t like hearing about the affair.”

Kelly was even more stunned than when she heard her guardianship was being challenged. How in the world was it possible that Brian was cheating on Kirsten? They had a perfect life.

“I’m sorry to have to pile this all on you today, but you’ll be getting papers probably next week, so I thought I should let you know. As I said, I don’t think they’ll push, but if you happen to find any of the evidence Kirsten had gathered, it might help the situation.”

“Thanks.”

Kelly wasn’t sure what else to say as she hung up the phone. She’d thought her world had been rocked when her sister died and left her the kids, but learning there was a fight ahead for the kids and that her sister’s life hadn’t been as rosy as she acted, it made her wonder what alternative universe she’d stepped into.