“I won!” I managed to get out even though I was now breathless.
“You won?”
My dad appeared in the doorway behind her. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I won!”
My brother came wandering into my room looking like he had just rolled out of bed. “What’s going on?”
“She won something,” Dad said.
“You won what?” Mom asked.
“Powerball! I just won fifty million dollars!”
My mom’s smile slipped off her face and confusion took over. “What?”
My dad crossed his arms over his chest and his expression went hard, like I was playing some sort of unfunny joke on him. “But you’ve never played the lottery.”
“I’ve never been eighteen.”
Beau tilted his head and was the first to step forward. “You won? Really?”
“Yes!” I held up the ticket for him to see.
He grabbed it from me and went straight to my still-open laptop. It didn’t take him nearly as long as it took me to match the numbers. He whirled around and yelled, “She did! She won!”
Now my parents were crowded around my desk, checking out the site as well. Soon we were all in a tight circle jumping around.
“How did this happen?” Dad asked, and we stopped jumping for a minute. “When did you buy the ticket?”
“Last night. I thought it would be a fun rite of passage into adulthood.” I hadn’t really thought anything of the sort. I was actually trying to prove a point to the insulting cashier. No, the amazing cashier. I loved that cashier now. She was my favorite person ever. “I didn’t think I’d win.”
My dad let out a barking laugh. It sounded a bit manic but I knew exactly how he felt. “That’s incredible. This is incredible, Maddie!”
“I know!” I had to jump up and down a few more times because energy was building up in my body and needed to be released.
My dad laughed again.
“What do I do now? How do I collect?”
“I’m not sure,” Dad said. “We’re going to find out, though.”
“There are instructions here,” Beau said, sitting at my desk. He clicked several times on the trackpad. “You have to take your ticket to a lottery district office. It looks like there’s one in Santa Ana.”
“That’s close,” I said.
My mom just stood there nodding, over and over. Could people go into shock over good news? “Mom? You okay?”
She continued to nod.
My dad pulled her into a hug. “It’s good news, Lori.”
She smiled.
“Come here, sit down.” Dad took her by the arm and led her to sit on the edge of my bed. “Don’t hyperventilate on me.”
She still didn’t speak.
“I’ll get her some water,” I said. “Just keep breathing, Mom. We’re happy, right?”
She met my eyes and smiled.
In the kitchen, all by myself, I leaned against the counter and covered my face with my hands. I was a multimillionaire. All our problems were about to disappear. This was what true happiness felt like, I was sure of it. I was sure my mom was feeling it, too, there on my bed, unable to channel it into anything but shock. She’d be fine. We were all about to be fine … more than fine.
The four of us—Dad, Mom, Beau, and I—sat around the kitchen table, where we had been sitting for at least three hours, laughing and joking more than we had in my entire eighteen years of life. My mom had called in sick to work, and the leftover candy from my birthday was spread across the table, like a colorful centerpiece. I wasn’t sure if we were high on sugar or life. We’d started a game called What Would You Buy with Fifty Million Dollars? The rules were self-explanatory. The answers had started off normal (planes, cars, houses) but had dissolved into ridiculous (scary clowns, abandoned ghost towns, a life-sized statue of each of us).
“How much do you think it would cost to rent a celebrity for the day?” Mom asked.
“It depends on which one,” Dad said.
I laughed. “I’m sure they don’t rent themselves out for the day.”
“I would. If I were a celebrity,” Beau said. “My going rate would be ten million dollars.”
“Nobody would pay ten million dollars to spend a day with you,” I said.
He threw a sour Skittle at my head. “That’s how much I’m going to charge you now that you can afford it.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for the day.”
“Deal.”
I laughed.
My mom suddenly became serious. “What would you buy, Maddie? You haven’t really said.”
Hadn’t I? I thought back, but really, it had all been them throwing out ideas. “College,” I said. “I’m going to pay for college.” I didn’t have to worry about getting a scholarship now. My smile spread so big that my cheeks hurt.
“Boring,” Beau said. “At least buy a plane to get you there.”
“This is Maddie’s money. Not ours,” Mom said, still serious. “She gets to choose how to spend it.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Dad said. “And based on all of our answers, I think the right person won this money.”
Beau gave an exaggerated eye roll and ate one last handful of candy before standing up. “I guess that means it’s bedtime.”
The next day, an excited buzz still ran through my house. I had barely slept; I’d kept waking up every hour, thinking it was all a dream. In the morning, my parents let me stay home from school and Mom took off from work so she and Dad could take me to the lottery office. There, we turned in my ticket and filled out forms. I picked the “lump sum” payment option. The office said it might take a month or two to get my money. After taxes, it would come to a little more than thirty million dollars. More money than I knew what to do with.
On the ride home, I cleared my throat. “I know you said this was my money and not yours, but I want to give you guys each a million dollars. And Beau, too. And I want to pay off the house and Beau’s student loans so he doesn’t have to worry about trying to find a job while finishing college.”
Dad glanced at me in the rearview mirror and Mom turned around in the passenger seat.
“Honey, maybe you should talk to a financial advisor, figure out exactly what you need to do before you give any away,” Mom said.
“Either way, I know I want to do at least that much. You’ll let me, right?”
“Let you?” Dad said. “You’re eighteen now. It’s your choice.”
“Well, that’s what I want.”
My mom reached back for my hand. I took hers and she squeezed. “That’s very generous of you, Maddie,” she said, sounding choked up.
“Yes, thank you,” Dad said. “That will take a big burden off of us.”
That’s what I’d been hoping for.
“And Beau, too. It will make a real difference in his life,” Mom said.
I hoped so, because I felt like all our lives could use a big difference.
My mom turned back to face the road. She reached across the center console and put her hand on my dad’s knee. He immediately took one hand off the wheel and placed it on top of hers. I smiled. That was already a very good start.
At home, I stood outside Beau’s door. It was after eleven o’clock in the morning, but he was probably still sleeping. I knocked quietly and there was no answer. I knocked again. When he still didn’t answer, I turned the handle.
The door opened with a creak and I walked into near blackness. I flipped on the light and Beau grunted and shaded his eyes. A bottle of cold medicine sat on his nightstand.
“Are you sick?” I asked.
He mumbled something unintelligible.
“Beau.” I shook his shoulder. “Wake up.”
“What? What do you want?”
I picked up the cold medicine. There was only an inch of the purple liquid left at the bottom of the big bottle. “Are you sick?” I asked again.
“What? No. It helps me sleep. Can you turn out the light?”
I did. “Can I talk to you?”