I had no one. My grandparents died long before I was born, my mom was an only child, and I didn’t know what to do. Rosa called our lawyer and he came over with my mom’s will. She wrote a will. I was still sick but that was the least of my worries. The day the lawyer came, I was feeling okay enough to get dressed. Rosa turned away everyone who wanted to talk to me, even my friends. I didn’t want to see anyone right now. I seemed to be constantly crying. I was still numb. As I looked at myself in my floor length mirror, I saw features of my mom and dad in me. Her hair, his eyes, her mouth, his nose. Then the doorbell rang and Rosa called me down to talk to the lawyer.
We sat at the kitchen table, me drinking tea and our lawyer, Charles, drinking coffee. Rosa sat with me, rubbing my back. Charles sighed. “Okay, Lily. This is going to be tough. There are a lot of… Changes you’ll have to go through.” Charles paused and I nodded at him. “Well, the gist of it is that your parents left you everything. Now, since you’re only turning seventeen in a few days, none of the money can be released to you. We will have to sell the house, but you can keep the cars if you wish.” Charles stopped to let me think. Obviously my mother’s car was gone, but we still had mine and dad’s. I drove a new Altima, but Dad drove a 1995 Mustang. He’d restored it himself and he said I could have it when I was older. I smiled and realized I was crying when a tear made its way into my mouth. “I’d like to keep Dad’s car. We can sell mine.” Charles scribbled something down on his notepad. For the next hour, Charles continued on about how everything in the house would be kept in storage until I needed it. If I chose to, I could use the money from my parents to buy another house of my own. It was entirely possible too, my parents were millionaires and our house was worth at least a million. I was rich beyond belief.
“Now, about your living situation,” Charles said, breaking me out of my daydream about my parents. “What do you mean?” I asked him. Wasn’t I going to still live here in LA? I didn’t have anywhere else to go. “Well, your parents did put someone down as your caretaker, in the unlikely event of them dying.” I raised my eyebrow at him. “Who is it?” I demanded. “Their names are David and Emily-Anne McCoy, in Castle Rock, Colorado.”
I’d heard stories about the “amazing and wonderful Emily-Anne” and “my best buddy David.” My parents had lived in Colorado before moving to LA. They met in college. My mom’s best friend started dating this cowboy, and he had a friend that was cute. Emily-Anne begged mom to go out on a date with her boyfriend’s friend, and mom agreed. Apparently, it was destiny. Mom and Dad were Maid of Honor and Best Man at David and Emily-Anne’s wedding. But my parents moved out to LA when my mom got an offer from a recording label, and the McCoy’s weren’t able to come out to their wedding. We’d gone out there to spend a few weeks during the summer with them. Almost every summer up until three years ago. Things just got hard and people got busy. David and Emily-Anne had three boys—Andrew was the oldest, then Jake, and then Gabe. I hadn’t seen any of them in years. Would Emily-Anne even still want to take me in? I was an orphan now, would she want to put up with me?
“The McCoys are flying here tomorrow to help arrange the funeral. They’ll stay here and you’ll fly back to Colorado with them after. I’ll get the house sold and everything settled here, and I’ll keep you updated,” Charles said, once again breaking me out of my daydream. Would they want me? I guess I’d find out.
YOU ARE READING
Cowgirl Up
Teen FictionLily Mappleton is in for the biggest change of her life. Her parents have died in a freak car accident, and Lily's lavish LA life is being uprooted and planted in the horse ranch community of Castle Rock, Colorado. Her parents' best friends have tak...