Axelle Gauvin is to assume custody of the minor. Of course, you could challenge the will in court… but it would be an expensive and lengthy process." The judge took off her glasses, and the icy knowledge that this was real, that I really might end up with this hard-looking stranger in back of me, began to filter into my panicked mind. "Thais will be eighteen in only four months, and at that time she 11 be legally free to decide where she wants to live and with whom. Although I would hope that Ms. Gauvin is sensitive to the fact that Thais is about to start her senior year of high school and that it would be least disruptive if she could simply stay in Welsford to do so."

"I know," said the woman, sounding regretful. "But sadly, my home is in New Orleans, and my business precludes my being able to relocate here for the next year. Thais will be coming to New Orleans with me."

I sagged down on my bed, feeling my somewhat threadbare quilt under my fingers. I felt numb. I was embracing numbness. If I ever let myself not feel numb, a huge, howling pain would tear up from my gut and burst out into the world in a shrieking, unstoppable, hysterical hurricane.

I was going to New Orleans, Louisiana, with a leather-happy stranger. I hated to even speculate on how she knew my dad. If they'd had any kind of romantic relationship, it would take away the dad I knew and replace him with some brain-damaged unknown. She'd said they'd been friends. Such good friends that he'd given her his only child, yet had never mentioned her name to me once.

A tap on my door. I looked up blankly as Mrs. Thompkins came in, her gentle, plump face drawn and sad. She carried a sandwich and a glass of lemonade on a tray, which she set on my desk She stood by me, brushing her fingers over my hair.

"Do you need any help, dear?' she whispered.

I shook my head and tried to manage a brave smile, which failed miserably. Inside me a hollow wail of pain threatened to break through. It hit me over and over again, yet I still couldn't quite take it in. My dad was dead. Gone forever. It was literally unbelievable,