Aimee's POV
I run back to the orphanage and run past the children eating lunch, I ignore Olivia's calls and go straight to Sarah's room.
I rummage through Sarah's desk to find the card for her lawyer. I completely forgot to let him know that Sarah had passed away. I had to let him know to see what is left of her savings, if it is enough, I can make do with just Luke's job, I won't ever have to see him again.
Finally, I found his card. I sit down on her bed and make the call. I let him know the details about her death, and while it is still a fresh wound I feel numb.
Everything I had left in me, was gone, nothing left of me just this empty body that has to breathe till I can find homes for these kids.
The lawyer's name is Mr. Windham, he has known Sarah all his life. He is the only one who know Sarah before she came to the USA from Italy. Mr. Windham came to the orphanage within the hour.
"I am so sorry kiddo, how are you doing? I know it must be hard to take care of 20 kids all by yourself. " Mr Windham said pulling me in his embrace. He smelt like pine wood, it was refreshing for a second.
"Mr and Mrs, Williams help me out so does Beatrice, she takes care of them more than I do, Olivia is ten so she helps out a lot more than she should. I am barely around them"
"Kiddo you are bleeding from your arm, do you need to see the doctor?" he asked looking concerned
"No, Mr Windham, that's just old stain I am running behind on laundry, I am perfectly fine let's get down to business at hand, I don't want to take much of your time."
I don't have time to go to the doctor, I need to get this done within these 2 days. and I have no clue how much time these legal formalities are going to take.
He sighs and something tells me he knew I was lying but he didn't press the matter much, I appreciated that, I didn't have much energy to make up more excuses.
"Kiddo, now that Sarah is gone, you are her next of kin. As you know she didn't have family or children of her own, you are her closest relative. so you inherited everything that was in her name." he said all this information with a calm and sympathetic voice like he was explaining to a 2-year-old why it is dangerous to put her finger in an electronic outlet.
I didn't mind it though, " She has about 50k left in her savings account, after clearing all the medical expenses, which she instructed to be used for the kid's adoption process, which I am sure you know the details of. From now on I will conduct thorough background checks on the adoptive families as per her request and help you allocate the money amongst all 20 kids." I didn't know what to say. the money was nowhere near what I needed and I cannot use it to repay my debt anyway. My last hope was this orphanage and I was already feeling guilty for even thinking about using it for my debt repayable.
"Now comes the hard part. Aimee, I know this will come as a shock to you, and with all that you have going on I don't want you to have more things to worry about but this is important. Sarah had been given this orphanage by a friend of hers from Italy for saving his life. She had never filed the paperwork to get it under her name. Because she always intended to give it back to him. But after multiple years of back and forth, her friend refused to take back the property, she agreed with him that, you will inherit this orphanage when you get married, she made this deal on the day when your biological parents left you here, they made Sarah promise never to give you up for adoption she knew you would be her only family and she wanted you to have a secured future, she never wanted anything for herself, she was deemed the caretaker of this property until you get married ."
It felt like the earth beneath me had been snatched away. Nothing made sense. How? What the hell did I just hear? She knew I was not getting adopted ever and she didn't tell me? Why? I went through hell with the bullying and other horrible parts of my life and all because she hid the truth from me.
I was battling with myself for all these years for nothing. The more pressing thought was what am I going to do when I go back to him. What will I say, how will I tell him that I can't give him the orphanage because it isn't mine to give, at least not until I get married?
These thoughts were killing me. The more I thought about what could be worse than this my life slapped me with more pain to show me that this is just the start of my painful life. I would give anything up to end this all yet I find myself trying to fix the mess I didn't seem to create.
"Are you listening? Aimee! " I was pulled out of my thought whirlpool by Mr. Windham's concerned voice.
"yes...yeah, I just got lost in my thoughts " I said giving him a fake smile.
"You just need to worry about getting all these kids up for adoption, you guys haven't put much thought into it since Sarah got sick, I saw your files and there are a lot of good options when it comes to families that I have applied to adopt the younger kids, don't keep them waiting any longer. I know it sounds wrong but get these kids to their forever home as soon as possible to that you can finally live your life on your terms. if you need any help let me know I will send you the documents as soon as possible, but we shall complete her death certificate process and let the government know that she has died."
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After signing about a million forms and documents all of Sarah's affairs were in order. While Mr.Windham was here he did complete background checks on three suitable matches for the adoption of the younger kids and he said he will help with the visits as well. I don't how I got lucky with Beatrice, Luke, Mr and Mrs Williams, and now Mr. Windham.
All of this I knew would be taken care of now I need to figure out the million dollars and what will happen when he hears about the clause. it seems like I haven't inherited an orphanage, it feels like I have inherited PROBLEMS, will I be able to fix this mess?