He picked up the note and read it again.
Oh Brin. I wish I could tell you I love y—
No.
He tore the note to shreds.
Chapter Fifty-One
Monday couldn’t get here fast enough for Brinley. She was at her new house bright and early to wait for the movers to get her truckloads of furniture from the storage compound in Brunswick all the way to her new oceanfront retreat.
She had given Tobias and Meg four days to finish up and yet they were still late by two days due to various “unforeseen” circumstances. As promised, she had called Alonzo Vega to supervise the bickering duo, more to keep her word and irritate Tobias at the same time than to get any work accomplished.
She knew Tobias was going to hate her for a while, but eventually, he was going to thank her for making his dad feel useful and for giving them father-son time that Tobias had been lacking.
See, I know my old friend more than he thinks.
Before she could unlock the front door, it swung open.
“Morning.” Tobias looked like what the cat dragged in. Red bloodshot eyes, tousled hair, crumpled plaid flannel shirt with a button missing, jeans with paint all over them.
“Just morning? Not good morning?”
“Technically, it’s not a good morning. Didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
Brinley tipped her coffee mug at him. “I’d offer you coffee, but I don’t share cups.”
“I’ve had too much.” Tobias limped away, his leather tool belt dangling around his hips.
“Why are you limping, Toby?”
“Tobias.”
“Tobias, old friend, why are you limping?” Brinley followed him up the stairs. A sonorous and reverberant snoring cacophony increased as she climbed.
There, inside the door of her guest bedroom, Alonzo Vega was sleeping on the hardwood floor, a corner of the drop cloth as his blanket.
“When your dad wakes up, tell him he’s fired for sleeping on the job.” Brinley sipped coffee.
Tobias laughed so hard he dropped the roller from his hand. Fortunately it was clean. He caught it before it hit the floor, though.
“Good catch, Toby. Might have a career in baseball after all.”
“That ended in high school with a torn ACL, Brin.”
Brinley nodded. “I know. Is it bothering you now? Is that why you’re limping?”
“Nah. A hammer fell on my foot this morning. Last night. Whenever.” He opened a can of paint.
Brinley stopped him. “Toby, look at me.”
“Got work to do.” He was about to pour the paint into a tray.
“Stop, Toby. Now.”
Tobias looked up. “Don’t tell me it’s the wrong color. I’m not repainting the wall again!”
“Toby.” Brinley took the can of paint from him. It was pretty heavy. She replaced the lid. “I want you to go home. Get some sleep. Nobody is going to stay in this guest room for who knows how long. Maybe my brother will stop by, but it won’t be in the next few weeks or even months. So go home, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to get fired?”
“Not today.” As the sun shone in, Brinley thought that the white tones on the wall had a warm and soothing feel to it. “If you take your dad with you.”
“I told you hiring him was a mistake.” Tobias arranged the paint rollers, brushes, and paint cans against the wall.
“What mistake?” Alonzo’s voice was raspy and came from behind them. He was sitting up.
“We’re calling it a day and going home, Dad. Hey Brinley, you need any help later today with the move or something?”
“Meg and the movers should be here, and she’ll tell them where I want everything to go. It’s going to be just the way I had it in my Atlanta house.”
Meg had started out in Atlanta before exhaustion caused her to move out of the busy metropolis to the more laid-back Georgia coast. Somehow Dad had found her, and she revived her interior design business. Doubling up as a property manager gave her the income she needed to feed her workaholism.
“Same design, huh? You don’t like changes, do you?” Tobias asked.
“I do too.” Brinley waved her arms at the sea blue wainscoting and the white frames of the transom windows. “I changed some colors.”
“But they’re essentially what you had before. In your old house.”
“Which does have a nautical theme.”
“In the city.” Tobias helped his dad to his feet.
“Nothing wrong with living in the city,” Brinley said.
“It’s landlocked.”
“What’s landlocked?” It was Meg’s voice coming from the door.
“You’re ready to go to work, aren’t you?” Brinley took in her sneakers, jeans, and pretty blouse. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tobias looking in the same direction she had been.
Meg ignored Tobias. “Movers are outside, Brinley.”
Brinley waved to Tobias and his dad as she went downstairs. She liked her open floor plan. The kitchen flowed to the dining room to one side and to the family room on the other side, connected by a salvaged wide-paneled oak floor, which Brinley had bought at a local antique auction years ago just waiting for a house to put them in. Dating all the way to the early nineteenth century, the old oak floor had come from an old church in Darien that had been razed down for development.
Beyond the oak floor in the currently empty living room, the new French doors beckoned Brinley to check out their shiny brass knobs and clean shatterproof panes. One never knew when a hurricane would strike.
Pretty soon my furniture will fill up this family room.
To those furniture pieces, she’d add small little finds here and there on her travels, unlike those expensive and large period pieces that Mom would buy.
She knew exactly where her piano was going to be. Right next to the piano she’d have a music stand. An antique music stand Mom had found in Vienna and was going to give to her. A music stand for—
Why am I thinking of him?
Brinley knew she had to let him go.
But how, Lord?
She was still ruminating on what to do when the movers backed their tractor-trailer onto her driveway. All her belongings from her house in Buckhead, except for her grand piano, had fitted into that semi. She might have to buy new furniture to cover the rest of the space in this new house.
Her iPhone chirped.
It was Yun McMillan. Brinley quickly answered it. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh yes, I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
Brinley waited.
“Would you like to continue our Tea for Two?” Yun asked. Brinley thought her voice sounded tentative.
“Of course. You know Ivan doesn’t want me to go to your house, but you’re most welcome here at my new home if you don’t mind all the boxes and dust.”
“Congratulations, Brinley. I’m happy for you. No, I don’t mind dust at all. How about tomorrow?”
Nervous voice. So unlike Yun she had met in December.
What have you done to your grandmother, Ivan?
Chapter Fifty-Two
“‘Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?’” Yun read Matthew 18:21 in her clear voice.
Brinley wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear that. She wanted to be mad at Ivan.
“It’s not natural for us humans to forgive. But it’s supernatural for us to do so,” Yun added. “If we are in Christ, God gives us the grace to forgive.”
“I want to slap him.”
“Me too, Brinley. Me too. That boy needs a spanking.”
Boy? Ivan was thirty. “Sure behaves like he does.”
“You and I know that, but he has to learn it the hard way. Give him time.”
How much time? Brinley sighed. “More tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Brinley poured more chai. “I’m glad w
e can continue to have our tea time.”
“I hate sneaking around Ivan, but it’s the only way to get here.”
“I can send Cara to pick you up anytime, you know,” Brinley said. “No need to get a ride from someone else.”
“Oh, they’re happy to do it. Don’t worry.” Yun sipped tea with delicate hands on the china cup.
Brinley was enjoying her chai too. They were sitting in her newly painted heated sunroom where the winter sun shone in but the cold stayed out. Outside the sunroom, the day was bright and the sky a swath of blue and white. The distant surf sounded muffled this afternoon.
Inside the room, boxes were everywhere. The furniture pieces had arrived from her Atlanta home, and some were still sitting in the trailer parked outside the house. For now, Brinley had an armchair and a love seat, the latter of which she had offered to Yun.
“I’m thinking of selling my Victoria upright,” Yun announced.
“Are you serious? Why?”
“I’m going to be ninety-eight next month.” Yun brushed invisible lint off her wool dress. “I’ve had the piano long enough. It’s someone else’s turn to play it now.”
Brinley knew there were more reasons than that. Perhaps Ivan’s being out of work had something to do with it. And the mortgages Yun had accidentally mentioned back in December. The situation was terrible, but there was nothing she could do about it without stepping on Ivan’s dignity in the whole matter.
Yeah, and then she went and destroyed his entire livelihood by giving him what she had thought he wanted: a Stradivarius.
“Do you happen to know someone who might want to buy it?” Yun asked earnestly.
Me! Me! I like old things, remember?
“Well, how much are you selling it for?” Nonchalant-like.
“The last appraisal said it was worth twenty-six thousand. I’ll sell it for twenty if I can get a quick sale.”
“Let me ask an appraiser friend of mine to see if he can give you better numbers.” Brinley picked up her iPhone and went to work.
Yun sat there, waiting patiently.
Brinley wasn’t sure what was going through Yun’s mind. Had she even talked to Ivan about this? What did Ivan think about the family heirloom being sold?
Her piano appraiser friend texted back. He wasn’t in Savannah. He was out of town for his winter break, and wouldn’t be able to get back to the Georgia coast right away.
No matter. Either way Brinley knew she wanted the Steinway. It would add to her collection of musical things in the vault—
You know, musical instruments are meant to be seen and played, not locked in vaults.
Ivan’s words came back to her.
She frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Yun asked.
“Bummer. The appraiser is on vacation and won’t be back until after I’ve gone home to Atlanta,” Brinley said. “How about this? I’ll give you twenty-six thousand dollars now for the Steinway. After the new appraisal, I will pay you the balance of what it’s worth.”
Yun’s eyes were wide. “You think it’s worth more than that?”
“A lot more. My guess is it’ll top thirty. But its history is priceless. It would be an honor to keep the Steinway for you so we won’t forget its history.”
Yun was visibly moved. “Thank you, Brinley.”
“I can transfer the money now to your bank account. Or would you rather I write you a check?”
“A check. I’m old school. I don’t know much about electronic bank transfers.”
But you know what it is. “Or would you rather I give you cold hard cash in unmarked bills?”
Yun laughed so hard her cup was rattling on the saucer.
Brinley glanced at her iPhone. “It’s not nearly three o’clock. The bank is still open. What say you if I write you a check and we go to the bank now and you deposit it?”
“Now? Right now?”
Brinley smiled. It’s just spending money.
Besides, the old piano was cheaper than any other musical instrument in her collection. And way cheaper than what Ivan had called the “stupid Strad” that was still unrecovered. While Ivan was all huffing and puffing about the five-point-four-million dollar Strad, Brinley was more concerned about recovering the other family heirloom. She’d pay a whole lot more to get the 1698 Damaris Brooks Stradivarius back into Brooks family ownership. In fact, she’d pay whatever the private collector would ask.
And I mean whatever.
If she had to sell some of her stocks at Brooks Investments, so be it. Grandpa Brooks had spent his entire life looking for that violin. And now she and her parents were very close to completing his quest.
“Yes, before you change your mind,” Brinley told Yun.
“I’m not going to change my mind. I know you’ll take good care of the piano.”
“I will. When the SISO Museum of Musical Instruments opens up, perhaps I’ll loan your Steinway to it along with the rest of my string collection.”
“A collection? How many instruments do you have?”
“Not many. They belonged to Grandpa Brooks. He gave it to me before he died. But it was missing his great-great-whatever-grandma’s violin.”
“Yes, you mentioned the Strad at Zoe’s birthday party.”
It had only been a couple of months, but it seemed so far away.
How could she ever forget that Air? The way he had looked at her when he played it?
Our song.
The pain in her chest intensified. She breathed in and out gingerly.
I can’t forget him. Help me, Lord.
The sooner she went back to work, the better. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to move the piano today.”
“You don’t waste time, do you, Brinley?”
Brinley called the piano movers. Yes, they could do it today, but it would cost double. She put them on hold. “What time do you want them to go to your house?”
“If we do it today, we need to do it before five. That’s when Ivan gets home from the doctor.”
Oh. Ivan again.
“What did he say about your selling the Steinway?”
“He doesn’t get to decide. It’s my piano. My decision.”
Ivan doesn’t know. Uh-oh.
And Brinley didn’t want him to stop the sale.
Yun seemed to sense that. “Let me tell you the truth, Brinley. Ivan isn’t going to get his SISO job back anytime soon. His music studio is shut down for the foreseeable future. It looks like we’re going to lose the house. I don’t want to lose the piano too. I’d rather keep it in the family, but seeing the situation as it is, my guess is that the piano will be sold later as part of my estate sale or something. I’d rather know where it’s going to go before I go.”
“Please don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere, Yun. Have more tea.”
Yun shook her head. “Someday if the piano makes its way back to my family, that will be fine. But for now I think it’ll be safe with you.”
“I’ll take care of it. I promise.” Brinley sighed.
Yun raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“I don’t get it, Yun.” It was a puzzle Brinley couldn’t unravel. “Isn’t Ivan a Christian?”
“Since he was six years old. You’re asking what’s happening with him? If God is so good, why is Ivan a mess right now?”
“Yes.”
“God’s goodness is independent of us.”
“Why is Ivan miserable?”
“He is walking by sight and not by faith right now. He needs to get down on his knees and repent, but he’s a stubborn boy. We need to wait for God to work in his heart on this.”
“You’re a patient lady, Yun.”
“It says in Isaiah 55 that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours. He sees more than we do. He does more than we can.”
Brinley realized then that Yun was the only person she had ever known who seemed to have a Bible verse for every need.
“Pray for Ivan, Brinley. He needs all the praye
rs he can get.” Yun put down her cup and saucer on the side table. “Now let’s go before the bank closes.”
Brinley helped Yun off the love seat and into her motorized wheelchair. Yun seemed to be getting proficient with that thing. She whirred it around to get her coat slung over the backrest of the love seat.
On the phone Brinley told the piano movers to meet them at Yun’s address at four o’clock. She pocketed her iPhone and helped Yun put on her coat. The garage was near her new kitchen, but she had a ramp put in for accessibility in case she decided to sell her house later.
Yun was a pro with her new wheelchair. “I like my new wheels. Thank you for my Christmas present.”
“You’re more than welcome. Just don’t get a speeding ticket.” Brinley held the door as Yun puttered into the garage. “If you had a ramp like this you wouldn’t need to climb those porch stairs.”
Yun shook her head. “I need the exercise.”
And it would cost money that Ivan didn’t have, Brinley didn’t say. That stubborn dude! If only he’d let her accountant help him sort out his bank account. He’d have a proper plan to get out of debt by now. But no. He had to learn it the hard way.
But he wasn’t her problem, was he?
Then why is he still on my mind?
Brinley couldn’t shake off the thought.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“What did the therapist say, dear?” Grandma Yun was at the screen door when Ivan trudged up the front porch steps.
Behind him, Matt backed away his van, its wheels crunching gravel on the way out. The sun came down on Ivan’s back, but the winter wind blew away any warmth from his neck.
“Long road ahead, Grandma.” Ivan’s voice was low. He closed the door and bolted it.
“At least your bones are healed.”
Ivan nodded. His ribs didn’t hurt as much anymore. He could move his wrist some. He still couldn’t lift heavy things, but he was getting there. He wished that Brinley could come over and massage his arm and kiss him and make him feel all better.
But she’s history.
When Ivan turned around, Grandma was shuffling off on her walker. Was it his imagination or was she walking slower than she ever did?
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