Who by Karen A. Wyle

Author:Karen A. Wyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oblique Angles Press
Published: 2016-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Keeping the secret from Thea’s stored fellows was one thing. Keeping it from her parents, she insisted, was quite another, and intolerable. But Hu sternly instructed Thea not to speak to them directly. “It’s too unpredictable. They might say something, or you might say something, that LiveAfter can use against us. You can bet the company will be listening.”

That left it up to Max.

Thea’s father jumped to his feet, shoving his chair back hard enough to knock it over. Thea’s mother, who might normally have restrained him, sat with her hands clasped tightly together, her eyes closed and her face turned upward as if in prayer. Max tried to sit very still until both of Thea’s parents had their emotions under a little more control.

Her father, however, did not intend to wait that long. He loomed over Max and shouted, “Did you know about this bullshit ahead of time? When you signed those papers?”

“Of course not!” Which he had to admit was evading the real question. Would he have signed anyway?

He had no idea.

Linda opened her eyes, stood up, and moved to stand by her husband with both hands on his left arm—a gesture reminding Max that Thea’s father was left-handed. “Dear, please. It’s not his fault. Thea was the one who made the arrangement. And she had far more opportunity to look into the details than Max did, taken by surprise at such a terrible time.” She turned to Max. “Does she know it’s happening?”

“She does now. And she’s—we’re—doing something about it.”

Linda led Bill back to their abandoned chairs, picking up the fallen chair and setting it upright. Max waited for them to sit, then explained the lawsuit as well as he could. He had memorized some legal lingo, but most of it now escaped him.

When he came to a halt, Linda leaned over to Bill, whispered to him for a moment, received his muttered reply, and faced Max again. “We can help pay for this. We don’t know how much that will help.”

Max almost replied that Hu had made such assistance unnecessary, but paused at the last instant: they must feel the need to do something, anything, to defend their daughter. Instead, he told them, “I’ll talk to the lawyer about that. Thank you. She might want you to help some other way. In fact, I’m just about sure of it. You could testify about what Thea was like before.”

A quieter growl this time: “Damn right we can.”

Thea’s mother smiled a little, which did not make her expression any less sad. “And I can tell the judge, or jury, or whomever about how Thea’s been hijacked into agreeing with her mother at long last.” Tears had finally gathered in her eyes. “And I was glad. I thanked her for thinking things through, and really listening to what I had to say. If I’d known . . . .” She lifted her chin and sat very straight, defiance personified. “I will fight for Thea until she can disagree with me again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.