Page 56 of Never Forget
"Give my regards to Simone," I said as she pulled back and kissed Rosie's forehead.
Loretta smiled. "I'll send pictures."
We watched her pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street. Rosie waved until the car was gone.
"Is Loretta coming back?" Rosie asked.
"She will. But not for a little while."
Rosie considered this, then laid her head on my shoulder.
The hearing for Rosie’s guardianship was a week away. I'd been managing with Loretta as backup. Now the backup was gone.
The guardianship hearing was on a Thursday morning. Sam showed up in a button-down that made him look unfairly good. I let myself notice for exactly one second, then moved on.
I'd been dreading the process—the paperwork, the interviews, the waiting. Guardianship cases could drag on for months. I'd read horror stories about family court, about petitions lost in bureaucracy, about children stuck in limbo while adults fought over jurisdiction.
But Jack had made sure that wouldn't happen to Rosie.
He'd used the same lawyer who handled our parents' estate eleven years ago. Mr. Harmon knew our family, knew our history, knew that Jack and I had already been through this once before. When I'd called him after the funeral, he told me Jack had come to see him after Sarah died to update his will. Henamed me as Rosie's guardian and made sure every document was in order, every question answered before it could be asked.
Jack had been thinking about dying. A firefighter with a high-risk job, a widower with a four-year-old daughter—he knew better than most that tomorrow wasn't guaranteed. So he'd sat down and planned for the worst, because that's what good fathers did.
It broke my heart to think about. My brother, alone in a lawyer's office, signing papers that assumed he wouldn't come home.
But it also made me proud. He hadn't left Rosie vulnerable. Even in death, he was still taking care of her.
The hearing itself took less than ten minutes.
The probate room was small and wood-paneled, more like an office than a courtroom. The judge reviewed the file and asked his questions. Was I the sister? Yes. Did I reside in the family home? Yes. Did I understand my duties as guardian? Yes.
He didn't ask if I was ready. He didn't ask if I was scared. He just saw what he needed to see—a stable home I already half-owned, financial security from an inheritance I'd carried since I was fifteen, no competing relatives, and a brother who had cleared the path before he died.
"Petition granted." The judge signed the order. "Get the Letters from the clerk's office down the hall."
That was it.
I stood in line at the clerk's window behind a couple filing for a marriage license. When my turn came, the clerk took the signed order, disappeared into a back room, and returned with a stack of documents on thick, cream-colored paper.
"How many certified copies?"
"Ten."
She fed them through the printer, then crimped a raised seal into the corner of each one with a heavy metal press. I paid for the copies and signed where she pointed.
"Congratulations," she said, sliding the stack across the counter.
I picked them up. The paper was stiff. The header readProbate Court of South Carolina, County of Havensworth.Below that, in bold letters:LETTERS OF GUARDIANSHIP.
I ran my thumb over the raised seal and felt the indent in the paper.
I had become Rosie's mother. Officially. Finally.
Sam and Rosie were in the hallway where I'd left them. She was on his lap with a picture book from her bag, pointing at something while he nodded along seriously. When he saw me coming, he stood and shifted her to one arm.
He looked at the papers in my hand. Then at my face. "So it's official? You're stuck with her now?"
I laughed, the sound catching in my throat. "Looks like it."
