The Proviso Read Online Free PDF Page B

its
longevity, at least for the six semesters until she graduated from
law school. With any luck, she’d continue to be able to arrange her
schedule as well as she had this semester—
    —even if that meant she wouldn’t have Professor
Hilliard, who, she had learned, taught Tuesday and Thursday classes
almost exclusively if he taught at all. She needed those two days
during the week to work, to the point that it might be
non-negotiable.
    Once she had parked in her usual spot, she sat for a
moment, taking in her lifelong home as if she had never seen it
before, compared and contrasted it to the fine old neighborhoods
surrounding UMKC. Then there were the relatively new subdivisions
south of KCI airport along I-29 at the northern edges of Kansas
City . . . fine new houses of the type she would never live in.
    She sighed.
    The dilapidated farmhouse, indistinguishable from
any other plain white-clapboard-clad gothic farmhouse across the
Midwest, listed on one corner. That could never be repaired without
shoring up the foundation and she couldn’t possibly hope to raise
that kind of money. The yard was barren, packed dirt bisected by a
poorly maintained gravel drive; her father used it to park worn out
and rusting farm machinery.
    The corrugated steel barn to the east of the house
displayed a lace of rust, the animals it occasionally housed their
only real income.
    The wheat fields would give a poor crop; Justice had
wanted to plant corn, as she suspected a good yield could be sold
to an oil company for ethanol, but her father had dismissed her
idea. Those fields were worn out—and the wheat proved it—but her
father also wouldn’t hear of letting her turn the cattle out into
them. Certainly, it would be more economical to let them eat the
wheat than pay for harvesting.
    Very good, Justice.
    She bit her lip, looked at the ragged wheat, then to
the south where the cattle grazed, then back to the wheat and made
an executive decision. She flipped open her cell phone and called a
neighbor, explained what she wanted to do, and arranged to swap
chores. She would mow his fields if he would combine and bale hers.
Her father would have to live with it, though she knew she’d have
to tread lightly and present him with a fait accompli .
    That done, she mentally went over the list of other
things she had to do this afternoon and evening, then sighed,
seeing her future in the past that lay before her in all its
pathetic glory. Hopefully, she could bring it back a little once
she graduated from law school and had a regular income.
    Justice got out of her car and walked into the
house, hearing the familiar squeaks in the bare floorboards beneath
her feet on the way to the kitchen. Despite what her father
thought, it had not been foolish to spend so much money on the
appliances that took up most of the otherwise primitive kitchen: a
used Viking with six star burners, two ovens, and a warming drawer;
an older Sub-Zero double refrigerator; and two fairly new
freezers.
    Her father’s anger had more to do with what she
hadn’t bought than what she had, even though his complaints
subsided when she demonstrated how fast they had paid for
themselves. Still, he didn’t really know how much she made because
she spent it as fast as she got it: tuition, books, cell phone,
aircard, gas, car insurance and repairs. The beef sales funded the
farm, but her meal delivery business funded her education.
    She had very little left over and she couldn’t
afford debt she wouldn’t be able to repay on a junior assistant
prosecutor’s salary, much less as a defense attorney if she were
forced to it. If she could get through law school without having to
take out student loans, she would be very proud of herself.
    No one else would be.
    She filled a large pot with water and set it to
boil, then turned on her mother’s old tape deck; the silence got to
her and she battled it with the music she’d found in the attic,
cassette tapes her mother had stashed away