Free The Good Sister: Part One by London Saint James

surgery and get rid of these glasses once and for all.” I stood with my feet planted firm, chin held up high, looking at my mother with a resolve.
    I thought I stunned my mother. She stared at me. Speechless.
    “I’ve saved all of my birthday money, and the graduation money my aunts and grandma Nan have sent. I also saved the money you gave me for helping you around here. I have about nine hundred and three dollars. Lasik surgery would cost about twenty-five hundred for me, I’ve researched it,” I said. My mother stood mute and unblinking. “So I need fifteen hundred give or take a hundred.”
    I heard, “I will cover the cost.”
    I flipped around, shocked to see Mrs. Addison donning a jogging suit, all be it a designer one, and decided I’d never seen Reid’s mother in anything other than a power suit before.
    “We cannot do that,” my mother said, turning her stunned expression from me to Mrs. Addison.
    “Francis,” Mrs. Addison said in a velvety soft voice. “You are part of our family. I know how hard things have been. This lawsuit with your husband’s life insurance company has been dragging out for years. I wish you would allow me take over the litigation, let me help you and your family more.”
    “You have helped us more than you know.”
    “Please, Francis. Let me do this for Trinity. And please reconsider my offer to take over the litigation on your behalf.”
    My mother looked at me. And for the first time in years I wasn’t glancing down or studying the lines in the floor.
    “Trinity, love, do you really want to have this procedure done?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you can handle going to the surgery center? It will mean we will have to go into the city.”
    I took in a large breath, held it then exhaled. “Yes.”
    My mother looked at Mrs. Addison. They both smiled at each other in unison. “All right,” My mother said. “Thank you for your kindness.”
    “Thank you for accepting my offer,” Mrs. Addison replied.
    “Thank you, Mrs. Addison,” I added. “I’ll give you the money I have, and I can do something to pay you back the difference.”
    “You are more than welcome, Trinity. But I want you to keep your money. I will cover the total cost.”
    “I will pay you back, somehow.”
    Mrs. Addison smiled. “There is no need to pay me back. It is a gift. But if you would like to earn some money, I am working on an important case. My paralegal is out on maternity leave, and I have stacks of phone records to go through. I could use the help going through them. You can work here, in my study.”
    “Really, you would like me to work for you?”
    Mrs. Addison nodded her head. “I would, yes.”
    “Okay.”
    “Excellent,” Mrs. Addison said. “We will start in a few days. Can you meet me in my study on Friday afternoon … let’s say one?”
    It wasn’t as if I needed to check my schedule of events.
    “Sure, Mrs. Addison.”
    “Please, call me Gwyneth.”
    Until this moment I’d secluded myself from the world, just stopped living. After the attacks on the TwinTowers, and losing my father, I was never the same. But, who was the same after such a senseless tragedy? My mother Francis and my older sister Bentley all suffered, changed, yet I knew both of them hoped in time, with understanding and help, I would be alright.
    When the doctors diagnosed me with agoraphobia, my mother didn’t accept it, but over time I suppose she had no choice. She watched me slowly retreat from the world. Night after night, I would wake, screaming in fear, mumbling almost incoherently about nightmares. The psychologists and psychiatric doctors said it was post-traumatic stress. Then as I grew older, my fear seemed to morph into nyctophobia or fear of the dark. Then xenophobia, fear of things or strangers, not to mention severe panic or anxiety attacks. My mother and my sister learned to accept this Trinity because the fearless little girl they knew never completely emerged from the ashes. Someone else came