On the table next to Carlas word search, her phone started buzzing, because Pastor Romero had filed my fathers will with the probate court that morning, and Carla was about to learn that the will she said got lost had been found.
Since my father passed, Carla and my stepbrother and his wife treated me like a guest they were tired of, and I let them, because Carla said the will got lost and I believed her. This time the truth was in front of the court, because Pastor Romero was a lawyer before he was a pastor.
My father left his house to me in his will, and Carla told me for two years that the will got lost, while she and Destiny and Ryan moved in and started painting the nursery in what was legally my house, but my father had kept his own copy in the glove box of his old truck, and I found it.
The folder in my backpack held it. My fathers signed and witnessed will, leaving the house to me, the copy Carla did not know existed. I had coffee with Pastor Romero and his wife that morning and put it in his hands, and he filed it with the probate court, because a hidden will is still a valid will when you find the copy.
Destiny snatched my glasses off my face, snapped them, and told me I could not read the test anyway. She did not know I had backup glasses in my bag and my fathers will in a folder. Carla laughed, and then her phone buzzed, and it was the beginning of the end of their nursery plans.
I put on my backup glasses and I did not crawl anywhere. I drove to a friends, and at eight the next morning I sat the Praxis, and I passed, because Destiny could break my glasses but not a year of studying.
I am certified now. I have a third-grade classroom of my own starting in the fall, the thing I have wanted since I was in third grade myself.
The house is going through probate, and my fathers will is holding, and Carla is explaining to a judge how a will that got lost turned up in my fathers truck. The nursery is being painted back to a spare room.
My father was a smart man to keep his own copy. My stepmother should not have told a grieving kid the will got lost.
Mija, my husband was a lawyer before he was a pastor, Mrs. Romero told me. He filed it. And Destiny stopped laughing before Carlas phone finished buzzing, because my fathers will spoke for me before Carla could tell one more lie.