When You Know

23 - I don't just want to do this for myself. I want to do this for her.

Uncle Landon didn't have a plan, but he promised he was going to think of something soon. He wasn't going to tell Uncle Brayden because he didn't want to have to get him involved unless he really had to. After all, he was Bree's half-brother, just as Aunt Hadley was her half-sister considering they all had the same father. But Uncle Landon thought it might not be fair to pull him into the plan when he didn't even know that we had gone to see her, especially considering Uncle Brayden never really talked about her. He was younger than Bree by about five years, so when she left he was still quite young and didn't remember her as well as Mum or Uncle Seth had. Uncle Landon didn't think he would mind getting involved, but he also wasn't willing to risk it just in case he wasn't ready, which I could understand.

Jet and I spoke later that night about what we might do to convince Bree ourselves. He obviously knew how to contact her from having looked her up on Facebook seeing as she hadn't blocked him like she had Mum. But we couldn't figure out what to say that would make her change her mind. I wanted to hope that if I just asked her as her son that she would just do it, but I was getting the impression that wasn't likely, and I also wasn't sure I wanted to use myself as her son as a means to get what I wanted considering I really didn't see myself as that in the first place.

Mum and Ruben were both busy at work in the lead up to Christmas, so they had been working late each night, which gave Jet and I a chance to think about it over the next few days when he picked me up from school. Jordie had been surprisingly pleasant to be around, for the first time ever. He was actually even kind of funny at times, which I had never known before.

In that time I spent with Jet travelling home from school, he came up with the idea that we could speak to a lawyer and find out what we could do. Ruben had mentioned to him at work that that was something Mum and he were thinking about doing, but they didn't want to get one of them involved and run the risk of losing me, just in case Bree still had more right to me than they did.

"I mean, we could always just ask one hypothetically?" said Jet.

"What exactly does 'hypothetically' mean?" I asked, because I didn't really know.

Jet chuckled kindly. "Basically it means that you're talking about an imagined scenario. Like, 'Ms Lawyer Lady. Hypothetically, what would you recommend an almost-twelve year old boy do to convince his biological mother who he hasn't had anything to do with since he was born to sign a stupid passport application?' Or, 'Hypothetically, what would you say if I said we should get ice-cream before going home considering it's hot as hell?'"

"I would hypothetically say, 'hell yeah.' But I have no money."

"Hypothetically, I can spot you," he said, winking down at me, and redirecting us on the footpath towards the ice-cream shop on the beach. Living near the beach, and therefore being near an ice-cream shop with amazing gelati was just another perk of Mum and Ruben being together.

"Thanks, Jet," I said, smiling back him with gelati already smeared all over my face. "So, if we can ask hypothetical questions to people, why don't we just ask a lawyer?"

Jet laughed, licking his own ice-cream. "I've got some cash, little bro, but I don't have that kind of cash. They cost like $200 an hour."

"But we only have one question, and it would take like two minutes to ask and answer?"

"That's not how they really work, Madd," Jet laughed again. "But maybe if we knew someone who knew about things like that, we could ask them. You know anyone?"

"I would say Mum, but I guess that wouldn't really work," I said, searching my brain for anyone else I knew who might be able to answer this question. "What if I asked the counsellor at school?"