Fly With Me

“Realistically?” Joan eyes me critically. “Not really. What I’m hoping we can do, is put your mother in such a light that she’s incapable of caring for you. By doing so, we can also show that the Jonas’s have a much better environment and influence, especially with your careers. And for one, you will be legally allowed to live on your own this year, am I right?”

I’ll be eighteen in December… I nod slowly. “Yes, that’s right.”

“So if we’re lucky, we’ll say it’s a short duration and after you’re legal, you can do what you wish. However,” she pauses to give me a stern look, “your mother still has claim and she can make it look pretty bad, you leaving all summer with the Jonas’s who took you on tour and didn’t officially get your mother’s permission or anything. By doing this, she can put herself in a better light, like a poor mother who just thought she was giving her daughter the best of attention, and she’ll look good to the judge.”

My heart drops and my hope fades as she speaks, explaining the other side of the case. “What then?” I ask softly. “If that happens? Do we just… lose?”

“Or we can hope for a compromise,” she shrugs. “You can do half-and-half with the families, or something. If it happens, I can file for a social worker to continually check up on you and your mother to study the situation at home. Such as not getting along, you going into depression and losing too much weight, etc.”

Biting my lower lip, I stare at my palms. This is such a chaotic mess. Faintly, I hear her asking me a question. “Yes,” I whisper. “I understand.”

“And you’re willing to go through with this?” She asks carefully.

I close my eyes and look up at her. “Paul and Denise completely support me in this. Their family has seen firsthand what happened when I was at home, and… and everything. I love my mother, but I can’t live with her. She was just… she was swallowing me. I don’t think I can go back, ever.”

Her eyes search mine in the silence and I think we begin understanding each other at last. Finally, Joan nods and begins collecting her things. “Well, I think I know what I need to do now. Thanks for talking, and I’ll get back in touch soon, okay? We’ll have to continue talking as the case progresses, all right?”

“Right, of course,” I manage a wistful smile, shaking her hand and stepping out of the office.

“Cicily?” I look up, surprised. Rob had said he would come pick me up, but it’s Nick. It’s three days since we received the letter, one month before the hearing. I hadn’t exactly talked to anyone or anything, having closed myself up in my room most of the time. Meaning we hadn’t exactly communicated… at all.

“Nick?” My voice comes out small and questioningly. “What are you doing here?”

He takes a deep breath, fiddling with the fedora he pulled off his head. “I came to pick you up,” he smiles carefully. “And to apologize, I guess.”

“You guess?” I cock my head.

He chuckles sheepishly. “You know what I mean. And I am sorry. I was just… I mean, I could blame it on my levels, but I don’t know what I was thinking. It was only a few words, but I realized that they really hurt you. So, I’m really sorry.”

My smile widens gratefully as I stand on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck as I tuck my face in the crook between his head and shoulders. “Apology accepted,” I whisper.

“Good,” he kisses my head, wrapping his arms around me. “I don’t think I could survive otherwise.” Slowly he pulls back and looks me seriously in the eye. “I do this too often, so next time I’m mean, I give you permission to slap me.”

I roll my eyes. “I could never slap you.”

“You have before,” he points out.

“Well… you were really out of hand, then,” I mutter, picking up my purse and taking his hand, we begin walking out of the office.

“As I might again,” he reminds me.

I sigh and glance over at him. “How about none of this ever happens again? Us, fighting and everything? I mean, just talking and understanding each other can make everything work. I mean, it couldn’t for most people, but it does for us.”

“You make it sound easy,” he smiles, kissing my cheek as he opens the door for me.

I return the kiss and climb in, waiting for him to get in his seat. “Maybe it is,” I say finally as he starts the ignition. “We just keep forgetting.”

“That’s probably it,” he agrees with a smile, because everything seems to be okay at the moment. “And now, we have to go explain this to everyone,” he says with a deep breath, glancing at me.

“Everyone?” I glance over, biting my lip nervously.

“Well, we haven’t explained it to my brothers. Or Mary or Ree. And then the press. There’s no way they’ll keep missing shots of us leaving the legal places and everything.” He talks it out reasonably for me. “We can figure that out tonight as a family, okay?”

The term family makes me smile and I squeeze his hand that he put on my knee. “Okay.”