A murmur rolled through the room.
Then he pointed toward me.
“And then I heard that her younger brother made one by hand from their late mother’s jeans.”
Now everyone was staring openly.
Carla tried to recover. “You’re taking gossip and turning it into theater.”
“No,” he said evenly. “I’m saying that mocking a child over a dress made from her mother’s clothing would already be cruel. Doing it while controlling money meant for those children is worse.”
Then a man stepped forward from the side aisle.
I recognized him vaguely from Dad’s funeral.
He took the spare mic a teacher handed him and introduced himself as the attorney who had handled Mom’s estate.
Carla spun toward him so fast I thought she might fall.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
He explained that he had been trying for months to get responses regarding the trust left for Noah and me and had received nothing but delays. He said he had become concerned enough to contact the school himself.
Carla hissed, “This is harassment.”
He answered, “No. This is documentation.”
My legs were shaking by then. Tessa squeezed my hand so hard it hurt.
