Chapter 5

Brad sat down at the table, "Well young lady, I don't think that you have to worry about a place to stay for a while. The court has agreed to make me your guardian for at least the next thirty days.

Amy got up and ran to Brad and threw her arms around his neck. The tears were flowing down her cheeks so fast that his shirt was getting wet. He hugged her for a while until she calmed down. Amy made no attempt to remove her arms from around his neck.

"I take it that you agree to stay, right."

The tears started flowing again. The phone rang and Brad had to pry her arms off of his neck to answer it before the caller hung up.

Rita Askins spoke as soon as he answered, "My supervisor informs me that you have been appointed temporary guardian of Amy Walton. We usually frown on such arrangements but we'll see how it works. I'll still have to talk to Amy and I would like to talk to you when Amy isn't home.

Brad assured her that Amy would received the best of care and that he would welcome the chance for Amy to speak to Social Services anytime they wished.

"I was going to speak to you today, but we have had two more domestic situations and I have to find homes for the children. Would it be all right if I see you tomorrow, I can't give you an exact time now, but I will call before I come.

"Sure, come anytime. I'm going to play it by ear about school. I don't think that Amy is up to it yet with her mother still in the morgue. By the way, have any arrangements been made for a funeral for Amy's mother?"

It was a while before Rita answered, "I think the city is going to bury her in a city-owned plot. They usually don't have a funeral for indigents. We can't locate any family."

Brad hesitated, "Would the city release the body to me. I'll have funeral arrangements made so that Amy can bury her mother properly."

Rita Askins gasped and was silent for a long while, "You are certainly a different sort of person that the type I usually have to deal with. I'm sure that I can have the body released to you, since you are Amy's guardian. Have a funeral home pick up the body and let me know what arrangements you make."

Brad thanked her and reassured her that he and Amy would be available to talk to her whenever she wanted.

Amy was looking at him when he hung up the phone. She had heard his end of the conversation. Tears were in her eyes and he realized that she was finally coming to the realization that her mother was dead and would not be coming back. He knew that since she had not seen her mother die, that the finality of it had not hit her until now. He went to her and put his hand on her shoulder and stood behind her while she silently wept.

Brad convinced Amy to go to her room and lay down for a while. He told her that he would make proper funeral arrangements for her mother and that Amy's mother would be laid to rest in his family plot. The cemetery that his mother and father was buried in sold the gravesites in plots of four graves. His mother and father had bought a plot of four graves and he and Vera had bought another plot of four graves. Since he was an only child, the other two graves that his mother and father had bought would never be used so he could use one of them for Amy's mother.