The Contract in Pieces

I tried to find something to say to Maya, but my answer never arrived. The space inside the car seemed to shrink around us.

For the next forty minutes, none of us spoke as we drove toward home.

As we turned into the driveway, Maya was already reaching for her seat belt. Our big house, paid for with sponsorship checks and video earnings, waited ahead of us.

I hadn’t shifted into park when she pushed open her door. She hurried up the steps without looking back.

The front door crashed closed behind her.

I stayed behind the wheel, the motor humming beneath me.

Elena kept her eyes on the garage. “We can’t give a thirteen-year-old control of serious contracts just because she’s upset.”

“She has us helping her,” I said, hearing the defensiveness in my own voice. “We’re handling it together.”

“She tore up the agreement, Adam. That’s not a normal disagreement. Something is wrong.”

“She’s the talent,” I said, pressing my fingers against my temples. “If she doesn’t believe in the creative choices, people can tell on camera.”

Elena looked over at me, slowly. The disappointment in her face made my stomach tighten.

“What?” I asked, as if I had no idea why she was looking at me that way.

“You called her talent.”

“That’s her role in the business,” I said. “Professionally speaking.”

“She’s our child,” Elena answered, her voice low and controlled.

“She can be both,” I insisted.

Elena released her seat belt. “Can she? Because I’m not sure we know when we’re acting as her parents and when we’re acting as her managers.”

She stepped out and headed indoors, leaving me in the car with its engine running.

I remained there, unable to move for a while. Then I took out my phone and opened our channel on YouTube.

The page showed more than six million subscribers. I flicked past the polished new uploads, traveling down through the older entries.

Seven years back. Then eight. Then nine.

Maya’s younger self filled the thumbnails: balancing on a bike, upset over a broken toy, scared before surgery. Each image had gathered views and comments by the million.

I chose a clip from when she was seven. Its loud, capital-letter title promised the biggest meltdown she’d ever had.

The footage began. My younger voice came from behind the camera, bright with excitement, while Maya cried on the kitchen floor over ice cream she’d dropped.

My stomach clenched as I watched.

That clip had spread everywhere. Its earnings covered the deposit on the house I was sitting in front of.

I remembered the numbers because I’d made a joke about them to Maya the year before.

I had treated it like a punchline.

How could I expect her to trust a business when one of its successes came from making a spectacle of her pain?

I shut the app, switched off the engine, and went inside. The house was silent.

Upstairs, I stopped beside Maya’s bedroom. A faint tapping sound came from within. I knocked, softly.

“Come in,” she called.

I opened the door. Maya sat at her desk, focused on her laptop. This wasn’t a game or a school assignment. She had the channel’s analytics open.

“Maya,” I began, without knowing what I meant to say next.

She angled the display so I could see. “I want the exact amount of our monthly income that comes from old videos.”

I stepped farther in and frowned. “What’s the reason?”

“I want the right to say no.”

“You can’t change what’s already online,” I said, my instincts as a manager rising before my guilt could stop them. “Those uploads are part of the channel.”

“I can refuse new ways of using them,” she replied evenly. “I want approval over licensing, and over anything sold to outside companies.”

“That could make licensing incredibly hard,” I warned. “The history is what brands pay extra to get.”

“Then leave me out of the deal,” she said without hesitation.

I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. A headache was gathering behind my eyes. “You’re talking as if the money isn’t real. We’re trying to make sure you’re secure later.”

“I know it’s real, Dad.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She met my eyes, looking much older than thirteen. “You give me the exact amount every time I ask you to turn down a job.”

Her words landed hard enough that I drew back.

Then she faced the laptop again. “I want to speak with a lawyer of my own.”

“Maya, we already have lawyers for the channel.”

“That’s different,” she said, still looking at the screen. “The channel has its lawyers. I want someone whose only client is me.”

I stood fixed in the doorway of my thirteen-year-old daughter’s room, unable to answer her demand for her own attorney.