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"This is blackmail. I'll tell my lawyer,"

"You don't have to tell him. I'll just go forward with all the rest of this and you don't have to sip the paper if you don't want to. Suit yourself," she said gathering up the papers and putting them back in her folder.

"Listen," I said in a voice of calm reason, "I'll have Mr. Saner contact you and your attorneys and you can work out whatever compromise you want and I'll leave."

"With that boy?"

"What's that matter to you?"

"If you think he won't go and make trouble afterward, you're an even worse dreamer than your mother. The moment he marries you, he'll hire an attorney to sue me and start all this over," she said.

"No, he won't. I promise."

"Promises. Do you know what promises made by women such as you are? Cotton candy. Dreams and illusions followed by dramatic proclamations peppered with I swears all over the place. I know. Megan has made me a thousand promises if she's made one and not one has ever been followed or come true."

"I'm not Mean!" I cried. She stared a moment.

"Yes, you are." she said. She looked around the room and at the bed as if Austin were still beside me. Then she looked at my naked shoulders and into my eyes and repeated. "Yes, you are."

She put the power-of-attorney document on the bed with a pen beside it.

"Sign it and I'll put all these other documents on the shelf. "I'll be back in ten minutes." she added and left.

I sat there, feeling as if all the blood in my body had drained to my feet. I was actually so dizzy I had to lower my head to the pillow for a few moments and take deep breaths.

Of course, she was wrong about Austin. I thought, but she was too paranoid and distrusting to believe in any guarantees I might make. I braced myself on my right elbow and looked at the paper she had left. This will never end until she gets her way with this. I thought. I was tired of fighting with her. Anyway, how could I let her destroy Austin's reputation and his uncle's business?

I took the pen in hand. I feared I was signing a deal with the devil.

I wrote my name on the line nevertheless. Maybe now it would end. I thought.

I should have realized.

Now it would really begin.

14

Struggling for Freedom

.

Aunt Victoria returned to my bedroom, saw the

paper had been signed, put it in her yellow folder and smiled. "Good," she said. "You've made the right decision. Now, things will go so much better for the both of us, especially for you."

"I want my phone reactivated immediately," I said. "And I want the keys to my van."

"Anything else?" she asked. Her smile now cutting so sharply in her pallid face and her eyes turning so cold, she looked like she had become a wax replica of herself.

"Yes. I don't want Austin or his uncle bothered or threatened and I want you to keep that spy of yours out of my face."

"Actually," she said, surprising me. "I was thinking of dismissing Mrs. Churchwell. You've been correct about her. She isn't very much of a cook and I'm not pleased with her cleaning and maintenance of the house. She cuts corners. Mother would have fired her the day after she had been hired. For what I'm paying her. I can have two maids."

"Good," I said. I certainly didn't feel sorry for Mrs. Churchwell.

"There, you see how well you and I can get along if you're cooperative." my aunt said. She started out. "I'll have her prepare your breakfast for you and then leave,"

"I don't want her to prepare anything for me. I can take care of myself."