why are we feeding the lawyer?

High and fash­ion­ably late, Zelie's toes were cooled by the morn­ing dew as she dan­gled her san­dals over the back of her chair, obliquely squar­ing off with her mother, their accoun­tant and Zelie's lawyer over brunch. They were press­ing her about the money, it was always about the money. There was plen.ty.mon.ey and the con­stant argu­ing over it…gah…I'm los­ing joy, mama. Losing joy.

Her mother swooped in with a lethal don't give a fuck about your joy, and Zelie's high escaped through the por­tal in her soul only moth­ers can rip apart, the one near the base of the brain and dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent from the por­tal usu­ally cho­sen by men who dis­ap­pear into the good­night leav­ing you for dead and island police search­ing your apart­ment at sunrise.