Late, at night, Gemma was packing Cady's bucks off.
Suddenly she saw the family photo of her, Ryan and Nicole. The woman took the photo and looked at it. She heartbroked again. She remembered all the lovely moments with her sister. How she suffered that she wouldn't be able to spend any of these moments or even see Nicole again, was indescripable.
Suddenly she heared weeping from Cady's room. She went there and stood in front of the room's door, suffering again. Her niece must feel even worse than her now. Much worse than her. But, on the other hand, there's no any purpose in crying or despairing. All that matters to Gemma should be Cady. She needs to focus on the girl's well-being.
**********
In the morning, after breakfast, Cady was watching TV, while Gemma was talking to Tess by their phones.
- I can't believe this is happening. - Gemma complained. - I agreed to take custody, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle this. I can't even take well care of my own plants.
- Have you heared from Ryan's parents? - Tess asked.
- Yeah. They called and offered to take her, but, like, they live in Florida, they're kinda weird. I don't know what what they deal is. Besides, if Nicole wanted Cady to go to Jacksonville, she would have said so.
- Yeah, I know. Nicole trusted you, right?
- Yeah. I would never let her down.
- Okay, so I think you shouldn't be worrying about any of this, Gem. Right now, I think you need to focus on Cady.
- Yeah, I know, and that's what I'm trying to do. But I'm not going to loose my work, your work, Jesus, when we don't have this Petz prototype by Friday, David's going to sue us. If he does, I would loose everything. I don't want it. I don't want Cady to be given to some strangers or worse.
- Allright. I don't want it either, but I think that we can get this damn prototype done. We'll work on this together, right? As we always do.
Gemma sighed.
- You better be right. Okay, I'll be thinking of that all. Call me when you think of some plan.
- Okay. Bye.
- Bye.
Gemma hung up and came to Cady. The girl payed her attention to her aunt. Gemma crouched down in front of her niece.
- Listen, Cady, um... I have this project at work, and since I had to take the time off last week, I'm not sure if I'm gonna get it done. But anyway, if you can stay here alone for a longer while and take care of yourself, that would help me so much. You can continue watching TV, or maybe... play on my Ipad. I know that your mom let you play on it only during this half an hour and I would also recomend you that, okay? I'm not gonna be gone that long, so when I'm done, we can do something together. Play a game, go to the playground or... grab something to eat. Okay?
Cady listened carefully. She nodded. They smiled at each other.
- Thanks. - Gemma said, then got up and went away to think what she can do to improve her situation.
And Cady decided to do what her aunt proposed. She hoped that they would be able to do something together again soon. She was just waiting for that.