echristian-epub-ee8a4ba5-94c3-4982-ae55-299db4e26c11

by Unknown

  “You’re not selling my house to bulldoze down for a municipal parking lot!”

  His jaw firmed. “We’ll discuss this at a better time. The idea is new to both of us—”

  “I am not selling the house.”

  “If you’re not going to be here, how do you intend to protect your investment?”

  There was that look in his eyes that said he was firm on the subject. Maybe a tearoom wasn’t the answer, but there had to be one. She wasn’t going to sell the house, on principle alone. Give up the only thing left of her family for a parking lot?

  “Be sensible, Emma.”

  The gently spoken words carried more weight than if he had shouted them.

  She kept silent for fear she’d say too much.

  “You’ve been running on nerves for more than seventy-two hours. You need to stop and think. And we need to talk this through. The house is falling apart and it makes no sense to keep it. Besides, I can use the money.”

  She snorted. “For what?”

  “A Ferrari. What else?”

  She snorted again.

  “Okay, if you really want to know, Mom’s in a nursing home and her money’s about to run out. I have the choice of paying twenty-five hundred a month or moving her to a facility three hundred miles away, where she’ll get less care. Neither Ken nor I will be able to visit her except a few times a year. Ken doesn’t have the money, and a sheriff’s pay sure can’t take the hit. This may be an answer to prayer. Who would have ever thought Lully would have left me half a house?”

  “Yeah. Who’d ever think.”

  “Look, I know this is hard on you. We don’t have to talk about this now. Rest up, and I’ll call you.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. She drew a deep breath.

  His mother. A letter I never saw. What next? A sick uncle? A deranged aunt?

  He shifted to his opposite foot. “I’m not kidding.”

  She could hardly debate a matter this serious; she’d dealt with all she could today.

  “The will can’t be changed. We have to decide, reasonably, what to do about it.” He straightened then. “I’ll be by the house in a few days. Think about what you want to do.”

  Sam stepped back, and Emma caught the door handle and slammed the door. He was barely able to escape being hit by it. She popped the car into gear and spun away, leaving the way she had fifteen years earlier—without looking back.

  Sam watched the car speed away from the cemetery and turn toward the house. She might not realize it, but Emma was hiding in that house just as Lully had. Not for the same reasons, because Lully had a reclusive nature. But Emma was hiding just the same, and he was the reason. She was bitter over what had happened between them so long ago. Well, he had his own bad feelings about that time. Feelings that he wanted to resolve, one way or another, whether she stayed or left again for good. He’d never gotten her out of his system, but one way or the other it was time he settled it with himself.

  Storming into the house, Emma snatched up the phone and called Sue, who told Emma to take all the time she needed. She then called Janice.

  “I didn’t do well with the job interview,” Janice said. “I know they’re not going to hire me.”

  “What makes you think you didn’t do well?”

  Janice had been looking forward to the job interview with nervous anticipation. There was a secretarial opening in an automobile parts store.

  “It’s not exactly life and death,” she’d told Emma. But Emma knew she desperately wanted what she called a “real job.” She’d taken accounting and English classes, hoping for at least an office job where she could advance. This was her first interview, and Emma could empathize with Janice’s fears.

  “The guy just kept looking at me as if he couldn’t believe I was in there wanting a job. It was like someone stamped mistake on my forehead.”

  “Jan, even if you don’t get this job, it doesn’t mean you didn’t interview well—”

  “I’m a jailbird, Emma. Let’s face it.”

  Emma heard the defeat in her friend’s voice and felt great sympathy for her. She wished she could be there with her, felt she needed to be there to help her over this hump. “First, stop thinking like that. People make mistakes,” Emma said.

  “Well, I make big lulus.”

  “Remember, attitude is everything. You walk into a place with an attitude of ‘I can do this job,’ and you’ll do fine. What do you think you could have done better?”

  “I fidgeted. Couldn’t keep my hands still. He had to notice.”

  “Did you hold something? Like a pen?”

  “No, I forgot.”

  “No matter,” Emma said. “Even if this position doesn’t work out, another will. Count it as good practice. You learned something today.”

  “Yeah,” she managed a weak chuckle, “don’t forget my pencil.”

  “What’s next on your list?”

  “I’ve got an interview set up for tomorrow.”

  “Hey, that’s great! What’s the job?”

  “Receptionist at a small company. They make plastic screws or something like that.”

  “Okay, now you know what you’ve got to do. Walk in there like you’re Ivana Trump, hold your pen, don’t fidget, and thank them for the opportunity when you leave.”

  Janice’s sigh came to Emma over the line. “Okay. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” she repeated.

  “Yes, you can; yes, you can; yes, you can.” Emma grinned. “Call me after the interview, okay?”

  “Okay.” A pregnant pause and then, “Em, I don’t know what I’d do without you—”

  “You’d do fine. Just believe in yourself. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Have you seen Sam yet?”

  The question caught Emma off guard. Why had she told Janice about Sam? In a weak moment one evening she had admitted her own weaknesses with men, and naturally Sam Gold’s name had surfaced. “I’ve seen him.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing, Janice. That’s all over. I have to run—honest. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Emma, that was an outright lie. Over? Ha. In a pig’s eye.

  Emma hung up and made a sandwich and ate it while thinking about the tearoom idea. Where had that come from? It was as if someone whispered the suggestion in her ear and she’d blurted it out. Sam thought it was a ridiculous idea, but was it?

  She spent the remainder of the day bundled in two sweaters she’d found hanging on hooks in the hall closet, contemplating what could be done with all the stuff Lully couldn’t bring herself to part with over the years. Magazines. Stacks of them. Books that Emma had no interest in and wondered why Lully had. Novels, history, medical and psychology books. Books on religion and philosophy. Art and design and minerals and gems. Emma couldn’t comprehend how her sister could have lived in such chaos. A junk dealer would have a field day in the house.

  There were also stacks of files holding the jewelry sketches that Lully must have spent hours on. They were all there, in no particular order. Lully’s computer sat in one of the empty bedrooms on a rickety table that held more file folders filled with designs. Obviously she used the computer software for work, but what else might be on file there? Emma turned on the computer but couldn’t get any further than that. No password she tried would allow her entrance. Finally she turned it off in disgust.

  “Gismo, if you could only talk.”

  The dog wagged his tail.

  She let the dog out to do his business and turned her thoughts elsewhere.

  Emma attacked the house over the next two days. She started with the front room. She sorted piles of junk and packed some of Lully’s personal effects.

  Weary from the seemingly impossible task, she headed for the rose garden on the third day. She raked beds and pruned bushes, thinking about Momma and how pretty the garden had been when she was alive. The plants could be beautiful again with proper care. She stood back, picturing the trellises overflowing with dashing pink climbing ro
ses offset by dark rose zinnias. The perfect surrounding for a teahouse.

  Don’t go there. You’re going back to Seattle and your former carefree, Sam-free life. There were roses and zinnias aplenty in Washington. Besides, it had been three days since Mr. Sam Gold had said he would be by. He’d failed to show up yet.

  She heard the phone ring. Setting her tools aside, she ran to answer it.

  Uncannily, it was Sam. “Emma, I’d hoped to come over tonight, but I’m not going to make it. There’s been a bad wreck at the junction on 550. But I haven’t changed my mind. We still have to talk.”

  “Sam—”

  “Gotta go. I’ll call later.” The dial tone droned in her ear. Replacing the receiver, Emma could have screamed in frustration. Leave it to Sam to have her tied in knots over a confrontation, then not show up. She wanted to kick something and she did. She kicked the leg of the computer table and then had to catch it before it fell. Her kick had loosened a leg. She lifted a corner of the table and used one foot to maneuver the support back in place. Then she braced it with a stack of books and prayed it wouldn’t collapse, taking the computer with it. Hadn’t Lully ever repaired anything?

  “Gismo, Sheriff Sam Gold is … is … I don’t know what he is, but he’s met his match in me.”

  She returned to the kitchen and tackled the dishes. By the time she’d won that battle she was exhausted. When she fell into bed she dropped into an instant, sound sleep.

  So sound that she didn’t hear someone trying to jimmy a basement window open, or the muffled groan of frustration when the attempt failed.

  Chapter Five

  Fingers of muted light gradually spread across dull linoleum, filtering through sun-faded curtains hanging at the window over the sink. Emma sipped a glass of orange juice, watching the weak ray creep across the kitchen floor.

  She hated late-autumn mornings, when it was dark when she awoke and dark before she left for work. It had snowed during the night; fluffy white patches nestled in cedar branches and in puffy skiffs along porch railings. Emma shivered, pulling her coat collar closer around her neck. The house was freezing. When she rolled out of bed the floor felt like ice. She made a mad dash for the bathroom, only to do a jig there on a threadbare rug in front of the old claw-foot tub. No more delay facing the task. She had to build a fire in the stove using whatever knowledge she retained.

  Burying one hand in the tangle of her thick, russet-colored hair, Emma stared at the dirty vinyl floor. The house was a mess. Dust lay everywhere. Floating dust particles coated everything and made her sneeze. The worn kitchen floor should have been replaced years before. The hardwood floors should at least be cleaned, waxed, and buffed, if not stripped and refinished. Sam was right about one thing; it would take a lot of work to get this place presentable.

  If she were to keep the house she would have to practically remodel the whole thing—house, floors, drywall, plumbing fixtures—the list was endless, and would the effort really produce anything different? A house in better condition, but who wanted an old house next to a deserted cemetery?

  Emma’s weary gaze swept the room. Lully had wanted the house to remain untouched—or was it only because of Lully’s laziness and lack of initiative? Maybe both. Now that Lully was gone, no one would know for certain. Emma’s eyes paused on the boom box that sat on top of the refrigerator. She didn’t need to switch on the cassette inside to know what it would be: Lully’s strange music.

  She turned to a radio and found a news broadcast on KIQX. She rested her head on the back of the straight-backed chair, contemplating the stained ceiling. What would a roof for this thing cost? Emma didn’t want to entertain the question. A lot more than she had, that was certain.

  Her gaze moved from the stained ceiling to the yellowed walls. When had the room had a coat of fresh paint? Never, in her memory. And this was her legacy. Hers and Sam’s. Maybe the house should be bulldozed.

  Had Lully lost her mind? Maybe the years of isolation had somehow damaged her thought processes.

  Emma noted the flaws in the kitchen, but deep inside memories stirred. Not all were bad. There had been happy times in this house too. Her gaze shifted to the dirty window. Light snow fell on the withered rose bed. Momma would have had a fit if she’d known how Lully let weeds overtake the bed. When had Lully lost her spunk? When she got sick, perhaps. Emma recalled that Lully had written about how she loved to garden. So perhaps her illness explained why Lully had let everything get so run down. Maybe she didn’t have the energy anymore to deal with yard work. At the same time, Emma recalled that Lully was never an overachiever. She could stare at work for weeks and pretend it didn’t exist. Perhaps she never noticed the house was falling down around her head.

  Yet Lully had made her choices and stuck with them, while Emma still didn’t know exactly what she wanted from life. She’d sought counseling a year after she settled in Seattle. It hadn’t been easy, talking about her parents, about why she had run away from Serenity. She felt like a fool. It had been so hard to talk about Sam and about how she felt abandoned by everyone close to her when he turned away but she had continued the weekly sessions because she was determined to make a new life for herself, and that meant facing harsh realities. She’d faced the past—most of it. Seeing Sam again, however, set her back ten years. She owned a business, was doing work she was trained for and enjoyed. She’d built a good life—one she was proud of and felt she was succeeding in—until the phone call informing her of Lully’s death.

  Lully had been the one who buried her head in the sand and pretended that if she didn’t physically see it, it wasn’t there. But Emma knew different. It—whatever “it” was—always lurked in the shadows, hiding in that mental closet where people hid things they wanted to forget but ready to pounce at the slightest invitation.

  Emma’s heart ached and tears stung her eyes. Lully’s world had not been based in reality. Lully left the house to both her and Sam, thinking it a grand gesture, no doubt. But Lully had no idea what a quagmire she’d created.

  Sam, Emma knew, couldn’t understand her ties to the house. If she left and allowed him to sell it for a parking lot … she couldn’t let that happen.

  Sam’s mother. Was what Sam said true? He may have a lot of faults, but Emma had never known him to lie. Sam needed the money from the sale of the house for his mother. That nagged at Emma’s conscience.

  Perhaps there was a way to keep the house and help Sam’s mother. Maybe she could stay until she convinced Sam not to sell the house. And, in that time she could have the house checked out to see whether it was basically sound. But then what? Was the idea of a tearoom viable?

  She chewed her lower lip, sorting through the facts. She could have all the time off she wanted. If Sue had to bow out because she wanted more family time, she could hire someone—Janice. Emma hated to take more time from her business, but Lully’s house was her business now.

  Why did Sam object so strenuously to a tearoom? The town didn’t have one; it would be a sound venture, a business that in the long run would pay out far more than an outright sale. Her mother’s rose garden could be salvaged, other flowering bushes and perennials planted. A line of tall flowering bushes would hide the cemetery if necessary. She could hire someone she trusted to run the tearoom. She could keep in touch by phone. It could be done. It would take some planning, but it could be done.

  I’m moving forward with the idea. She’d buy out Sam’s part and he couldn’t say a thing about her whim.

  She phoned the bank to check what accounts, if any, were in Lully’s name.

  Darrel Masters, president of the bank, came on the line. “Emma, good to hear from you. My sympathy for the loss of your sister.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Masters. I’m trying to settle Lully’s affairs, and I wondered if she had any accounts there.”

  “Well, yes, she did. She kept that account your father set up. She did change some things—”

  “What kinds of things?”

  �
�You know Lully had an Internet business—”

  “She did?”

  “Jewelry. She designed jewelry, you know, and then sold it on the Internet. Had accounts set up through MasterCard and Visa with the sales amounts directly deposited into her account. She came in once a week on Friday noon, just like clockwork, and drew out the exact amount that had been deposited. Last week the amount was $1858.64. I’d leave that account open because more transactions are sure to come in—”

  “She drew out all the money each week?”

  “Every Friday. I tried to convince her to keep what she didn’t need in a money market account so it would draw interest, but she refused. Said she didn’t trust banks, which is rather strange since she used the account all these years. Anyway, I was concerned about her keeping money at the house—”

  “She kept her money at the house?”

  “Well, I’m assuming she did. She was a private woman, you know.”

  Except for the books, computer, and software, Lully certainly hadn’t spent much on herself and none at all on the house. “Is that an average total for a week?”

  “Oh no—sometimes the sum was much higher. I imagine orders will slow dramatically now unless you plan to continue the business.”

  Not likely with a greenhouse and tearoom to consider. That was one decision, at least, that was clear-cut. “No, I won’t be continuing the business, but I’m going to have to figure out a way to close it out.” But I have to get into the records first. “Thank you for the information.”

  “If I can do anything to help, please give me a call or come in. I’d be happy to accommodate you.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Masters, I’ll do that.”

  Emma hung up slowly. Why had Lully taken all of her money out of the bank? And what had she done with it? Suddenly the addendum to Lully’s bequest came back to her: Tell Emma she will find her true legacy if she looks hard enough.

  True legacy. What was that supposed to mean? What did Lully mean by “if she looks hard enough”? Look where and for what? Emma was standing in the middle of her legacy, an old house that was about to fall down from neglect. She carried her empty glass to the sink, rinsed it out, and laid it in the plastic drainer. How could Lully exist without a dishwasher? She rubbed her cold hands together. And a decent heating system. Restless, she paced into the chilly parlor. The huge, black relic of a stove squatting on a brick hearth challenged her. She shook her head.