The Don's Animal-Talking Little Girl novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Offer

The legal aid office was in a church basement on Penn Avenue, between the food pantry and the AA meeting.

The lawyer was young and kind and had eleven other files on her desk.

She read Ignazio's petition twice.

"I'm going to be honest with you," she said.

"Please."

"He's her blood relative. He has money, a big house, no record, and a stack of letters from priests saying he's a saint. You're a cemetery worker with no legal tie to her and a grandmother in heart failure."

"I raised her."

"I know. Judges care about that." She tapped the DNA report. "They care about this more."

"So I lose."

"You'd need something big. A stable home. Two parents. A blood tie of your own."

I drove home with my hands at ten and two so they'd stop shaking.

Teo's car was parked at the cottage.

He was waiting on the crooked porch with his collar up, and Gran was inside with the curtain pulled back, not even pretending.

"You got one too," I said.

"I got a copy." He held it up. "He didn't tell me he was filing. He hasn't answered my calls."

"How nice for you. Your uncle stole a six-year-old's hairbrush."

"I want to talk somewhere she can't hear."

The only place on the hill with a door that shut was the toolshed.

It was dark in there and smelled like gasoline, cut grass and cold iron.

I pulled the string on the bare bulb. It popped and died.

Neither of us moved to fix it.

"My father's will," Teo said in the dark. "The construction company is in three equal shares. Mine, my uncle's, and Agata's."

"Agata's dead."

"Her share goes to any child of hers. Until the child is twenty-five, her guardian votes it."

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