The girls she normally had lunch with began to tease her about having a boyfriend. She tried to avoid this topic and downplay it, feeling that any fuss she made would only exacerbate the talk. She didn’t even know why she didn’t want to tell her sisters, even Marlin when they lay every night in side-by-side cots staring out the window at the stars and discussing almost everything else. She puzzled it out and realized that she didn’t want to tell them because it was something that was hers alone. The one corner of her life for herself. Nearly everything she did now felt as if she did it for the family. For the survival and continuing union of them. And she did not for a second regret that. But here was a little refuge. A place just for her. A place where she could have feelings of her own that were not for the benefit of others. And part of her might feel a bit guilty too because she had had to say no to her sisters. To the things that they wanted. No to Charlie when she wanted the latest fashion doll. No to Natasha for strings. No to Marlin for some of the fancier cooking ingredients and implements she would like to buy. No, no, no. It felt so unfair that she herself had something special that made her happy. Something she didn’t have to ask for. Something that had nothing to do with the rest of them. Something of her own. But then it was something that cost them nothing.

More and more Fiona was worried about money. She had recently gotten an email from Hiram Pennypacker with the subject line TAXES!!!!!!! She had ignored it as long as she could but now she pulled it up and found she had ignored it too long. It turned out they owed taxes on complicated things because of their inheritance, things that made her head spin like the difference between the value of Martha’s house when she had bought it and what it had recently been assessed at. These taxes and others were past the due date so there would be penalties.

All of this Mr. Pennypacker had tried to warn her about and the reason she had checked his email at all was that one night when it was her turn to bring Al his dinner he had met her at the door with, “DO. YOUR. TAXES! Do your taxes and get that garden gnome off my back. He seems to think as your guardian I should be doing them. Which is ironic since he doesn’t believe I am your guardian and by the way, that has to be resolved. He’s not going to let this go on forever. But right now, TAXES!”

“All right,” said Fiona. “I’ll look into it.”

“Don’t look into it. Do them.”

So Fiona found the forms online. She had their banking information. The taxes came with instructions. There was even tax software she could buy. She figured she could handle it but when Marlin came in one night she found Fiona silently weeping over them.