Chapter 23—Amelia
“Are you going to show us?” Amelia asked, her voice so quiet she didn’t think Kate had heard her.
Matt pushed the envelope across the table, his eyes on Kate, who nodded.
Megan leaned in, and Amelia carefully slid out a thin, narrow page from the envelope.
“Is this her...?”
“Her diary, yes,” Kate answered. “At least, I think so.”
Together, Amelia and Megan read the slanted, even script—their mother’s careful handwriting, handwriting she’d taken seriously in her years of grammar school. Handwriting she had flaunted during Country Club fundraisers when they asked who will make the sign? and at town council meetings when they asked will anyone put together thank-you notes?
Amelia’s eyes moved across the words, but none of them made sense. If what she was reading was true, then they had lived a lie, and for what? If what that journal said was true, then the will was valid. Precluding the date of the Heirloom house, of course.
Her pulse quickened and her breath caught in her throat as she finished and looked up at Kate, first. Then, Matt. Finally, Megan.
It was Megan who spoke next. “Is this real?”
Kate shrugged then dropped her head to her chest.
Matt answered. “As far as we know, yes. We called the county recorder’s office here and in Arizona. I just got off the phone when you two showed up. I talked to the record keeper at Birch Harbor Unified, too.”
“And what do they say?” Amelia asked, floored, still.
Kate lifted her head. Lines crossed each other above her head. The hollows beneath her eyes sat deep and sallow. “They didn't know about anything. Mom lied to me. To us.”
“That’s what they said?” Amelia asked, bewildered.
“No, that isn’t what they said.” Matt reached his hand out and covered Kate’s. Amelia shifted in her seat, unable to tear her eyes away from the equally familiar and foreign display of modest affection.
“So what did they say? Get to the point.” Megan’s neck glowed red and splotchy. Amelia shook her head sorrowfully.
“They said,” Kate began to answer, searching Matt’s face. “They said the truth. Somehow, we just never found out.”
Chapter 24—Clara
Teaching all day was exactly what Clara needed. It would distract her from the business of contesting the will.
It would also give her a chance to be away from her sisters and really think about their question. What did she want?
First period was a blur, a mess of papers and excuses for not having papers and following up on the sub’s notes. By the time second period began, Clara finally had a chance to sit at her desk, check emails, and sip coffee.
Her students sat quietly, completing their bell work, and Clara knocked out a flurry of housekeeping messages; there would be an assembly on Friday; tardy lunch students were being rerouted to the library; ticket prices for the promotion dance were going up, up, up! Get yours today!
It reminded Clara of her own middle school experience. The hope of being asked to a dance. The nervousness about starting high school.
Most kids who had older siblings, enjoyed something of a paved road—for better or worse. Amelia had it harder. Teachers had loved Kate. Or at least, that was Clara’s impression. To follow in her footsteps was to succeed a lovable queen to the throne. But then Amelia, with her creative energy and free spirit, set the bar low for Megan. Megan, more Type A but less lovable, simply enjoyed the experience of knowing almost everyone who was in the upper grades. It offered her a buffer. A reputation.
Then came Clara, twelve years younger than Megan. Most of her sisters’ teachers were retired or long gone by then, and no students had ever heard of a Hannigan child. They only knew about the Hannigan family. The earliest settlers of the area. The name was more like a story than an identifier of real people. It had turned Clara into an only child with a history. An odd thing to be.
Now, as she sat at her computer, finished with emails, neat stacks of papers to grade towering to the left of her keyboard, she felt an itch.
A list-making itch. Not the pros/cons type. More like the goal-setting type of list she’d forced her churlish students to compose months back at the start of the second semester.
She pushed her keyboard aside and pulled open the small notebook she kept for her personal notes. Shuffling through a few pages of shopping lists and one to-do list, she landed on a blank page with thin pink lines running orderly across.
At the top, Clara titled it: Personal Goals.
Beneath that, she pushed the tip of her Ticonderoga onto the start of a new line—a new word... a new sentence... anything.
But nothing came.
She flipped the page. On the next blank sheet, she added a different title: Hannigan Estate.
Beneath that, she found her rhythm, jotting down each of the four properties and even some of the belongings she recalled from the reading of the will. Lastly, she added a few mementos she had wanted to keep for herself, such as her grandmother’s afghans and a hope chest that she once heard about but never did see with her own two eyes.
Beside each item, she listed who she felt best matched with each property. To Clara, it didn’t make sense to sell the house on the harbor. At least, not yet. It was too important. Too historic. But also, too much work. Perhaps Kate was a good fit? She needed to move anyway. Of course, she’d wanted to downsize, but that was just because of the mortgage payment. If she had the house, then Ben and Will could visit. Megan’s daughter, Sarah, too.
Clara didn’t know what made sense for Megan. She was on the verge of divorce. Maybe she’d be better off with the house? Amelia was least likely to handle it. But she could handle something. She could handle low-maintenance rentals... like The Bungalows.
Would anyone want the cottage?
Clara thought back to what she knew of the cottage’s modest beginnings. Apparently, it was something that her mother and father began working on in the months leading up to Clara’s birth.
From what Kate had told her, Clara knew that Nora had asked Wendell to find, purchase, and break ground on a new home inland, something lower maintenance. And, he did. Of course, his project went unfinished, but Nora forged ahead, hiring people here and there and chipping in herself to pull off completion of the modest, pretty three-bedroom, two-bath that sat next to Birch Creek.
Then, nothing. With Wendell’s absence, the cottage sat there, collecting dust and overflowing clothes and furniture for a long time, until Nora decided to move in herself, leaving the place on the lake for one with easier daily upkeep, apparently.
It was a short walk to the school. So short, indeed, that sometimes Clara would steal away inside the cottage by herself and snuggle into the single iron frame bed that made its way there. In that bed, Clara would read and drift in and out of sleep until nighttime drew near, at which point she’d hurry home to an almost empty house.
Clara snapped to attention, inhaling sharply.
Yes. The cottage.
That’s what Clara needed.
The cottage with the afghans and the iron bed. The cottage that had been her hideaway for so long.
The cottage that was denied to her when Nora wanted her to live at The Bungalows and play property manager.
She needed the cottage.
It was settled.
After a quick set of directions to her students to put away their grammar textbooks and take out their journals, Clara tapped out a text message to the group chat with her sisters. She knew she’d be interrupting their meeting with Michael, but they had to have the information. They had to know to give her the cottage. Nothing else. Just the cottage.
All Clara needed was the cottage. If she could get that, then she wouldn’t necessarily have what she wanted, but she could figure it out. Clara Hannigan could solve the world's problems in that little place on the creek. She did as a kid. She would do it as an adult.
Clara would move to the c
ottage on the creek, and that is where she would figure out her life—away from the big house, away from the four-plex, away from the loud lake and the tourists and the noise of town. In her own little cottage.
Where maybe she could find that hope chest.
Chapter 25—Kate
Kate had always thought her life was defined squarely by two phases: before she had children and after. This is what everyone had led her to believe, and it’s what she indeed knew to be true.
After all, giving birth and taking on the role of motherhood was life changing.
Once Ben and Will were born and Kate and Paul had found their new normal—their lasting normal, by all accounts—phase two finally began in earnest. Kate took solace in raising her little family, and found the chance to part with Nora, Amelia, Megan, and even sweet little Clara to be easier than she’d ever imagined.
Living all the way up on Apple Tree Hill, away from Birch Harbor, didn’t hurt, either. There, she’d made a new life. She paid bills, changed diapers, and organized mother meetings in her front room. There, she washed the dishes every night and sorted and stowed fresh laundry each morning. Then, once the boys left for college, life tipped again. She was still, of course, their mom. And at that point, she was also still a wife.
New normal became book club and floral arrangements and gardening. Then, eventually, Kate discovered the working world. First with a secretarial position at the sanitation company Paul managed. Then as an underling at an upstart realty company. Currently, she was still very much an underling, since during Paul’s sickness and subsequent death she was forced to take so much time off that she had to start over again from the beginning when she'd finally grieved enough to return.
Kate had always predicted she’d one day become a comfortable widow far down the road and well into old age. Comfortable financially, thanks to wise investments and helpful children. Comfortable in her new town, which always somehow felt like a new town. Never a hometown.
But she was stripped of that luxury. No comfort. Too young. Too mired in debt from poor investments and expensive college tuition times two. Of course, Ben and Will were worth every penny. But she’d like to have some money to spare. Some to cover the mortgage on the house the boys had grown up in, for starters.
Then again, even that felt wrong. Kate didn’t actually want to stay in that beautiful house with casement windows and high ceilings and a lush garden. She wanted soul.
She wanted a home. And, in fact, Birch Harbor was the only home she’d ever known, even if it came with the heartache that a true home often knew.
The two phases of her life—before children and after—weren’t the full story. It would appear that there was about to be a third phase: The Great Unknown. The preview to her golden years, should she be lucky enough to enjoy them. And, the handling of her mother’s death and her needful sisters. But God didn’t stop there, no sir. He had to throw in a monkey wrench. A twist. A problem.
Kate’s biggest worry for the moment was not, in fact, sharing the truth with Clara.
It was whether Amelia and Megan were going to cooperate in light of that truth.
Then again, perhaps the letter, that sweet, sickening letter, meant they wouldn’t have to. Maybe, just maybe, there was another way out.
Presently, she and her sisters sat at Matt’s table, their lips in tight lines and eyebrows furrowed heavily.
Kate spoke. “I’ll take the cottage. We’ll split the house, since it wasn't mentioned. You two can fight over The Bungalows and the land. That’s the plan, okay?” She started to pull her hand away from Matt, but something stopped her. “Speaking of which,” she continued, slipping her hand out from his and returning it primly to her lap. “What did you plan to offer for the house, Matt?”
She felt Amelia’s and Megan’s eyes bore a hole in her, and she caught Matt’s uncomfortable reaction. But this was down to brass tacks. The will—and Clara’s exclusion from it—was irrelevant if they could fetch a pretty penny on the sale of the house. Or, at least, find another option that would provide Clara with something.
He cleared his throat. “Kate,” he started, holding up his hands defensively. “I’m not sure now is the time to discuss that. Are you sure you want to sell it?”
“You showed up there, right?” Megan pressed, suddenly on Kate’s side.
He nodded. “Yes, but, I didn’t... I didn’t realize things were sticky. I would never want to intrude. If I can help, then I will help. But I’m not about to come between you three—or, um... you four. And that place is a legend. I mean... ” He was rambling, and it made Kate smile. He always used to ramble, even as a teenager, a fumbling teenager who asked permission to so much as kiss Kate on the cheek.
“Listen, I’d be happy if we sell it. I’m in New York now, and—” Amelia was on the precipice of launching into some well-meaning lecture about her unavailability and big dreams and high hopes, but Megan cut her off.
“Oh, please. Amelia, you haven’t had a real part since you left Lincoln, Nebraska. Nothing is keeping you in New York, and you know it.”
Kate’s eyes widened in horror as her sisters opened the same argument that they’d gone rounds with since the funeral.
Amelia put up a good fight. “I have Jimmy. And Dobi. And a great studio apartment,” she protested.
Megan rolled her eyes, landing them squarely on Kate. “Are you hearing what I’m hearing? She actually plans to stay in the city?”
Kate shook her head. “I never thought she was leaving the city. And why do you care, Ms. Suburbia?”
Megan clicked her tongue. “I’m not sticking around there. Not unless I get the house, and even then... well, I’ll probably sell it.”
“So you’re coming back to Birch Harbor?” Kate pressed.
“Maybe,” Megan replied. “Maybe I’ll take the cottage. It’s the right size for Sarah and me, and then... just me, once Sarah graduates.”
“You’re not taking the cottage,” Kate answered, her eyes narrowing on Megan, her spine lengthening into a rod.
Matt held his palms up at the three of them. “Ladies, come on. We have bigger fish to fry than who gets what, right?” His eyebrows twisted up and he looked at Kate. She swallowed and her body relaxed.
But he was wrong. Nora’s letter, the revelation, the truth, and the will—all it came down to was who was getting what.
And Matt was now part of the puzzle, but he didn't seem to realize it.
Chapter 26—Nora
June 9, 1992
Wendell phoned yesterday. Or should I say I phoned him. He found a little house on Birch Creek. It’s a fix-it-upper, he says. He also says it’s full of charm and that it reminds him of me. It's incomplete, though. It has a back building, a barn I think. Lots more construction to become whole, I guess.
I’m not sure that he’ll make an offer, but I hope so. I’m in no state to make big decisions. That much is true.
If we get the house on the creek, then I’ll feel better. I’ll feel like we have options when we return. The girls can stay at the cottage while things blow over. Maybe all the moving and shaking will distract everyone and paint us as eccentrics. I always wanted to be an eccentric, until I married Wendell. I could have been Miss Havisham herself if it weren’t for my loving husband and wayward children.
I told Wendell what I thought was best regarding our family's little situation. He didn’t seem to understand. He didn’t see “what the big deal” was. Wendell’s heart knows no shame. I envy him for that.
All I have ever known are the scales of shame. My life has always been weighed on them.
I am going to live through this, and I will do it right. I won’t be ashamed, not of the situation. In fact, no matter how hard it is, this will all be a blessing. A blessing. I’m sure of it.
Chapter 27—Clara
The lunch bell rang at the same time Clara’s phone buzzed against the metal pencil tray in her desk drawer.
She’d forced herself to keep her focus on her
classes. She’d forced herself to ignore the background drama of the estate.
Now, it seemed, she’d get some news.
Mercy Hennings was dawdling at her desk, and Clara hated to shoo the nervous little thing out, but she had to answer the call.
“Mercy,” she began, her phone crooked at the ready in her hand, “are you staying in here for lunch... or?”
“Oh, no, Miss Hannigan. I just wanted to let you know that my dad said thanks for meeting him in the parking lot yesterday. And, well, I suppose I wanted to say thanks, too.”
“It was no problem. We just happened to bump into each other is all,” Clara replied warmly as the incoming phone call went to voicemail. “Well, have a nice lunch, Mercy.”
“Thanks. You too.” The child smiled sadly, and Clara’s teacher instinct kicked into overdrive.
“Mercy, is everything okay?”
The girl turned on her heel and bit her lower lip. “Oh, yeah. Kind of.” She kept her eyes on the hardwood planks of the classroom floor.
“Oh, sweetheart, come here. Sit down. What’s bothering you?” Clara waved a hand to the student chair next to her desk, and Mercy eased down into it, her backpack sliding off her shoulder.
Clara eyed the backpack, then her phone and asked Mercy for a moment to send a text. She quickly wrote to Kate explaining she’d be in touch in five minutes. Just five minutes to solve the problems of the world for a middle-schooler. Guilt tugged at Clara’s heart.
“It’s just that high school is coming up, and I’m scared.”
Relaxing into her own seat, Clara smiled. “What are you scared about, Mercy?”
“The other kids, mostly.” Mercy fell into a hunch and crossed her arms over her chest.
Clara replied with some confusion. “What do you mean? You know almost everyone who will be in your freshman class.”
Mercy sighed a deep, adolescent sigh, her upper lip catching briefly on her braces.
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