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envelope peeked out from under the bed covers. Carefully, she lifted it out. The lawyer’s address label was on the front, with the notation: “ Pilgrim Baxter—Estate Plan—DRAFT .” About time he got to this, she thought.
    Corella had earned her teacher’s certificate just as the new governor was talking about taking pensions away and basing salaries on “merit”—meaning your career lay in the hands of bored kids cut loose by lazy parents. Schoolwork? Not even. Not when there’s curb service for rock and herb on the street, Grand Theft Auto on the Game Boy, streaming porn on the web. The American dream. She was sorry for what had happened to her father but the money was luck and she’d need all she could muster. Otherwise the future just looked too grim.
    She checked to be sure he was still dozing, then opened the envelope quietly, removed the papers inside. There was a living trust, a will, some other legal documents captioned “ Baxter v. Williams et al .” Not like I don’t have a right to see, she thought. He’ll need me to make the calls, transfer accounts, consult with the accountants and all.
    She read every page, even the boiler plate. By the time she was done her whole body was shaking.
    * * *
    Raymont, wearing his preacher collar under a gray suit, stared out through the beveled glass of the Victorian’s front door at Corella on the porch. Girl’s nothing but a snitch for her father, he thought. He felt like telling her to just go away but Lorene hadn’t come home the night before. He’d rattled around all night alone in their canopy bed, like a moth inside a lampshade, wondering if he shouldn’t call the police. But, given his troubles, that could turn tricky. Besides, he figured she wasn’t missing. She was hiding.
    He cracked open the door. “Your mama’s not around.”
    Corella had her hands folded before her, prim as a nun. “I didn’t come to see her.”
    She might as well have thrown a rock. “Say that again?”
    “Turns out you and I have something in common.” She looked him square in the eye. “We need to talk.”
    They sat in the kitchen, Raymont sipping Hennessy with a splash of 7-Up, Corella content with tap water as she told him what she’d learned.
    “The lawsuit and eviction remain in place—against you. Everything against my mother is dismissed in exchange for her cooperation and truthful testimony.”
    Girl sounds like a bad day on Court TV, he thought. “Your mama says I forced her into anything, that’s a damn lie. I may have suggested —”
    “She gets the house, too. He’s quit-claiming it to her. But the debt comes with it.”
    Raymont shook his glass, the ice rattled. “There’s his pound of flesh. Payments too steep. She can’t keep up, they’ll foreclose.”
    Corella shook her head. “She’ll be able to hold them off for a while. And the insurance annuity that pays for my father’s care? It has a cash payout when he dies. Half a million dollars. He’s giving half of that to my mother to pay down the debt. That should make it manageable but still steep enough it’ll feel—if I know my mother and father—like punishment.”
    Girl understands her blood, he thought, I’ll grant her that. “And the other half—who gets that?”
    Corella shook her head, a little flinch of outrage. “It goes to the nurse.”
    Raymont put down his drink. “The bouncer? ”
    “‘For services rendered charitably, patiently, and generously.’” Corella seemed about to cry, but there was ice in her voice, too. “I get nothing.”
    “You got a half-sister floating around somewhere, too, am I right?”
    He might as well have slapped her. “She doesn’t deserve anything! Where has she been? What has she done?”
    “Easy. Easy. I just—”
    “The nurse is bad enough. I’m the one in the family who’s been there. Every day.”
    “Fine. Agreed.” Raymont juiced up his drink with a little more Hennessy. The girl was getting on his nerves and he needed to