Alana

Chapter Three: Alana's dilemma begins

Now, since a year had passed, Mr. Mercier had won the legal battle and the house that Debra lived in since she used his compensation from the army for his supposed death, when he didn't die, for the house, and since she pointlessly kept every receipt she had since moving, she presented them as evidence without checking them, the court determined that since his death, she had bought a new purse, the car and a bunch of other expensive and frivolous things, like a fur coat, and since Mr. Mercier had suspicions that Debra wasn't being faithful, he had a paternity test done on Alana, and the results came back negative. In the words of Maury,
"Mr. Mercier, you are not the father!"

Now, of course, Mr. Mercier was angry and devastated, but he still loved Alana as a daughter, and he told the court that he would take full responsibility for Alana, and that Mrs. Mercier had also put that money into putting Alana into a private school, which the court thought was an unnecessary expense. But they couldn't just kick her out of school, as her grades were decent and she hadn't gotten into any trouble, aside from the floating incident, she had learned from Rhiannon to control her powers, so they decided that since Mr. Mercier had lost his eye, he was discharged from the military, but given a bravery medal. It was all very tiring to Alana, sitting in court and most of the time, she zoned out. The point of this is, that he was awarded all the money that Debra used and the house and the car, which he didn't really want, so he traded it for a simple truck, and, more importantly, full custody of Alana. He was happy about that, but Alana could tell that he was depressed and lonely, but she didn't know anyone who was around the same age and he was having troubles finding a match online.

But, one day, Alana got a letter in the mail, and it was from a university, Penn State, and she opened it and found out that she had been accepted. She was excited, but didn't wanna tell him quite yet, and she especially didn't want to tell Rhiannon. She knew she would be upset that she was moving so far away.

Mr. Mercier was cooking on the stove. He didn't really know how to cook, but he had gotten better at it. No more salads, more more flavorless casseroles, Mr. Mercier was a far better cook than Debra ever was. Other than the fact that the first few times he cooked, he burned the food. But he had gotten progressively better, and he was always sure to include flavor. Sometimes it was a little too much, but again, he was still learning.