Praise for What You Said to Me
“As her Tree of Life series continues, Oliva Newport once again delivers complex characters and cross-generational storylines that show us how words can wound … and yet can also heal. In What You Said to Me, Newport examines the depth of human frailties at any age, reminding us that truth has a way of coming to the surface and that what we choose to do with it will make all the difference. Add the fascinating historical threads of the nineteenth century collapse of the US silver market, and readers will enjoy this well-crafted story.”
–Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials
“So few of us truly know our ancestors—their dreams, their challenges, their disappointments, their secrets. In fact, we often don’t know those important things about the living because we are experts at hiding, deflecting, and stoically carrying on. In What You Said to Me, Olivia Newport unfolds the story of a family nearly lost to the ravages of time and forgetfulness. The result is a tender tale of a troubled girl discovering her unique past and finding hope for a better future. Perfect for fans of historical fiction, genealogy buffs, and anyone who wishes they knew who the people in all those old family photos were.”
–Erin Bartels, award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things
“Olivia Newport’s storytelling is smart, smooth, and sassy in What You Said to Me. A cast of endearing characters, a small-town setting, and perfectly woven contemporary and historical threads make for a fast-paced read that ties time and family together. Thank you, Olivia! I couldn’t put What You Said to Me down!”
–Leslie Gould, Christy–award winning and #1 bestselling author
© 2020 by Olivia Newport
Print ISBN 978-1-68322-997-1
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-64352-820-5
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-64352-821-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1810 Barbour Drive, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com
Our mission is to inspire the world with the life-changing message of the Bible.
Printed in Canada.
DEDICATION
For Tracy, who takes me to surgeries, calls me after surgeries,
and generally cares about all the parts of life that
go into knowing you matter.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
CHAPTER ONE
While slightly on the monochromatic end of the culinary spectrum, the dish would pass for edible—more than edible in most family kitchens that wouldn’t have Jillian Parisi-Duffy’s father coming through the door before it was due to come out of the oven. Every food he prepared was better than everything she made, but she tried to hold up her end of the household balance of chores. Nolan had been arriving home late more and more evenings recently with a bulging briefcase, reminiscent of her childhood when it was her mother who fed the family and her father either missed the evening meal or ate hastily so he could work again in his home office.
That was before Nolan discovered his inner-chef self when circumstances thrust upon him the responsibility of feeding a motherless child.
Jillian was fairly certain she had no inner-chef self awaiting discovery. She simply plodded along, following recipes the way most people did.
This one had been successful enough to repeat every now and then. The casserole dish held cubed chicken with peas, carrots, celery, and onions covered in a roux. Jillian stabbed at a lump in the sauce with a fork and sighed, wondering how many other clots had gotten past her effort this time. In a mixing bowl, she had biscuit dough ready to drop on top. A cheater’s chicken pot pie, she called it. No real crust from scratch, which she would have failed at miserably, but plenty of hearty satisfaction, reasonable nutrition, and leftovers for easy lunches.
Jillian had a year and a few days before her thirtieth birthday. Maybe if she didn’t share a home with a widowed father who had become such an enthusiast in the kitchen, her own efforts would be more impressive by now.
Doubtful. She was one of those people who enjoyed partaking of interesting meals but found less pleasure in creating them.
She turned on the oven to preheat and dropped rounds of biscuits at carefully calculated intervals. The refrigerator held arugula, avocado, and plum tomatoes for a salad she could throw together at the last minute.
While she waited for her dad, Jillian cleaned up after herself, rinsing the pans and utensils she’d used before loading the dishwasher and wiping down the gray-speckled granite counter and breakfast bar. By then the oven was just about ready. Nolan’s pickup rumbled into the driveway, and a couple of minutes later he ambled through the back door.
“You cooked?” Nolan’s keys clanked into the copper bowl on the counter.
“I sent a text telling you I would.”
He plopped his briefcase onto the breakfast bar and dug for his phone in a pocket. “I see that now. Sorry. It’s been a hairy day.”
“The mediation isn’t going well?”
“I can’t seem to get the parties in the same library, much less reading the same book or on the same page.”
“You’ll do it, Dad. I know you can.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jilly. And for dinner.” He inspected her offering. “Have we run out of magical little black flecks?”
Jillian rolled her eyes. “Pepper is your department. Just don’t overdo it, all right?”
“I don’t conceive that as a possibility in the existing universe.”
“Your taste buds live on steroids.” Jillian tossed her sponge in the sink. “Do you feel up to making the dressing for the arugula?”
“Happy to.” Nolan sprinkled pepper on the main dish and put it in the oven. “I arranged some help for you today.”
Jillian cocked her head. “I wasn’t aware I needed help.” A maid? A counselor? A spiritual director? A running coach?
Nolan spun her around by the shoulders and marched her into the dining room. “Has it occurred to you that we have been unable to dine in this room for quite some time? That in fact it is becoming increasingly difficult even to traverse safely through on the way to the living room?”
“You can always go by way of the hall. I have it un
der control, Dad.”
“I beg to differ.”
Jillian scowled. Usually she kept her work contained to her office, which was a few steps down a short hall right off the kitchen. Overflow files might temporarily occupy the two side chairs across from her desk but not often for long. Many of her genealogical research projects required no physical files at all.
The St. Louis project was different. It involved hundreds of papers from the client, dating back long before the internet was in everyone’s house, supplemented by auxiliary information she was already dredging from assorted research sources that might or might not prove relevant. It would take time to sort through what she had to work with and find credible starting points for all the genealogical trails the work demanded. Files from decades ago rambled over the dining table and onto half the chairs. Well, all except the one Jillian sat on. Several stacks on the floor converged in a trail leading into the living room. But Jillian knew generally what everything was and what she intended to do with it. Eventually.
“I have a system,” Jillian said. “I know how to do my job. This contract is just larger than most.”
“Monstrously,” Nolan said. “I know you plan to subcontract some of it out to other genealogists once you get a better grasp of what all is here, but don’t you think you could use a teeny bit of administrative help on the front end?”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t persuaded. “I don’t even know how I’d figure out what to pay someone. I’m still getting my head around the project.”
“The beauty of my plan,” Nolan said, “is you don’t have to pay a penny.”
“Oh no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means—Dad!”
“Aren’t you getting a little old to use that suspicious tone?”
Jillian cleared her throat. “Would you like to explain?”
The doorbell rang.
“No time.” Nolan headed for the front door. “She’s here.”
“Who’s here?”
“Just give her a chance.”
“Dad!”
He wagged a finger at her.
Nolan opened the door on one side of the spacious Victorian home that served as its main entrance. Jillian hung back, but she could see the figure on the porch.
A waif of a teenage girl with bright pink hair, ripped cut-off shorts, and twigs for legs met Nolan’s exuberant greeting with the deadpan expression of a comedic straight man.
This was help?
Surely she had a crate at her feet and was about to launch into a canned speech about how buying candy or magazine subscriptions would help underprivileged youth such as herself go to camp and develop leadership skills. Someone else would come to the door in response to Nolan’s arrangement.
Instead, Nolan welcomed the girl in.
No crate of items to sell.
“Jillian, this is Tisha Crowder.”
“Hello.” Jillian knew who she was—at least by sight, and who her mother was. Brittany Crowder was three years ahead of Jillian in school. Everyone knew her. She’d always been popular. Then the rumors started flying that she was pregnant even though she’d never had a steady boyfriend in Canyon Mines—that anyone knew about—and she was tight-lipped about who the baby’s father was. But Jillian was a freshman and Brittany a senior, or would have been, when the baby was born. She’d dropped out. The rumors shifted to saying that she never told a single person who the child’s father was. Not her mother. Not her best friend. Not her doctor. No one. Jillian didn’t care. By the time Brittany had her baby, Jillian was mourning her mother. Speculating about another student she barely knew was the last thing on her mind.
Brittany kept the baby and continued living with her mother and grandmother. Over the years, the three women rotated through working in one Main Street shop or another, so their faces were familiar to everyone. Jillian tried to ignore the gossip about why there were never any men in that family. Tisha’s hair had been blue and then green before this summer’s pink. Once it had even been half and half. Then there was the year she’d cut the hair on the sides of her head two different lengths.
It would be hard not to notice Tisha Crowder.
Jillian eyed Nolan. Her father could strike up a conversation with every stranger he met, but even for him it seemed a stretch to propose Tisha as an answer to Jillian’s need for help.
Help she did not actually need and had not asked for and did not want.
“Tisha is in a bit of a pickle,” Nolan said. “She needs to do some volunteer hours between now and when school starts again in a few weeks.”
“Oh?” Jillian looked from her father to the girl. “A school project of some sort?”
“No.” Tisha blew a bubble with her gum and popped it, staring at Jillian all the while. It was as if she were reading off a script about how to fail a job interview.
Look like a punk. Check.
Wear inappropriate clothes. Check.
Seem disinterested. Check.
Display annoying habits. Check.
“Not school,” Nolan said. “A legal matter.”
Jillian returned her gaze to Nolan, feeling her eyebrows lift involuntarily.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Nolan cleared a stack of yellow file folders from the purple chair where Jillian liked to sit. While she settled in, he sat beside Tisha on the navy sofa.
“Tisha pleaded guilty to shoplifting at a downtown Denver department store,” Nolan said.
Tisha shrugged and muttered, “They had me on camera.”
Undeterred, Nolan proceeded. “It was her first time in court, and the value of the item was low enough that she qualified for alternative sentencing. No one is interested in ruining a young person’s life over one overpriced silk scarf.”
The mental image of a silk scarf from a department store around the neck of Tisha Crowder lacked coherence. Wouldn’t a designer shirt or even a handbag make more sense? Or electronics?
“Her lawyer was someone whose services her mother once used, a long time ago.”
“I see.”
“I know him from family court connections. It’s pro bono all around. When he saw Tisha had a legal address in Canyon Mines,” Nolan said, “he reached out to me to see if I would be willing to supervise something.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Jillian said. “Supervise?”
“Tisha needs some sort of structured community service or volunteer work experience over the summer to meet the terms of her alternative sentencing. Doing it in Denver isn’t practical. We’re already past the Fourth of July. Half the summer is gone. The rest will go fast. If she completes her hours successfully and stays out of serious trouble for the next twelve months, the incident will be taken off her record. Happily, I knew somebody who could use an extra pair of eyes and hands for a few weeks.”
Oh Dad, oh Dad, oh Dad. You’ve got to be kidding.
“Tisha,” Jillian said, “do you have any work experience?”
“Nah.” She smacked her gum and crossed her bare legs, letting a yellow flip-flop dangle from one big toe.
“Tisha just turned fifteen,” Nolan said, “so she would have needed a work permit. But we had quite a lengthy conversation with her caseworker, and she is confident of Tisha’s abilities.”
And what abilities are those?
In response to a buzz, Tisha pulled an iPhone several models newer than Jillian’s from her back pocket and began texting. Where did she get the money for that? Or had she bypassed cash in the manner in which she acquired it?
Monosyllabic responses. Check.
No prior experience. Check.
Text during interview. Check.
“What kinds of things are you interested in?” Jillian asked. “Do you like history?”
“History?” Tisha didn’t look up from her phone. “Not really.”
“Do you have computer skills?”
“Duh. Internet-native generation.”
Tisha didn’t look up. Jillian glared
at Nolan.
“Are you good at sorting information into files?”
“Don’t know. Never tried.”
“Tisha needs about fifteen hours a week for the rest of the summer,” Nolan said. “That sounds right, doesn’t it, Tisha?”
“I guess.” Tisha finally shoved her phone back in her pocket.
“We can make up some kind of a time sheet. It doesn’t have to be the same three hours a day, as long as it comes out to fifteen every week. And this week we need to make up for missing today.”
“So you’re thinking we’d start tomorrow?” Jillian forced thin words past the choking sensation.
“Can you think why not? It’s only Tuesday.”
“Kris might need some extra help down at the ice cream shop. She hires teenagers,” Jillian said. “And summer housekeeping is always busy for Nia at the Inn. She takes on extra people for the season. We could check around for something we’re sure is the best fit for Tisha’s skills.”
“Every plan should always be open to adjustments, of course,” Nolan said, “but I’d like to see us give this a chance before we reevaluate. You could really use some help in an immediate way.”
He pointed toward the dining room, and Jillian’s gaze followed his finger.
So you brought me a juvenile delinquent who clearly doesn’t want to be here?
CHAPTER TWO
I’ll leave it to the two of you to work out the details,” Nolan said. “Take a few minutes to get to know each other while I work on dinner.”
Pressure lurched through Jillian’s chest. He wasn’t going to invite Tisha to eat with them, was he?
“Would you like to stay for dinner, Tisha?” Nolan said. “We’d love to have you.”
Jillian clenched her teeth.
Tisha narrowed her eyes. “What are you having?”
Well, that’s rude.
“Jillian made a delicious version of chicken pot pie,” Nolan said, “and I’m going to throw together an arugula salad with homemade dressing.”
“Arugawhat? I think I’ll just go home to eat. See what Grandma Ora cooked.”
Jillian eased out a breath of relief.
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