Forever and For Always

by Sophie Love

  “I wouldn’t!” Emily protested.

  “But you already did!” her mom argued back. “You ran off here without telling me. I’m your mother. I need to know where you are, even if you don’t want me to see you.”

  “I know.” Emily looked back into her mug. “I’m sorry.”

  Patricia came and sat at the kitchen table opposite Emily. “I figure you’ve found out a lot of stuff you were protected from as a kid since you came here. Looking through your dad’s stuff.”

  “Some,” Emily said in a small voice. She sounded as much like a child as her mom made her feel. “I know he was on antidepressants.”

  “Okay,” her mom said. “So you know you get it from both sides now.”

  Emily looked up and frowned. “You think I’m depressed?”

  “I think you have a greater disposition toward mental health problems. Don’t ignore them like your dad did.” She reached out and took Emily’s hands in hers.

  Fighting her first instinct to flinch, Emily held hands with her mom. It felt incredibly uncomfortable to do so; she couldn’t remember the last time they’d touched like this. She didn’t want to talk about these things. She wanted to move on with her life. She was happy. At least she’d been happy before her mom turned up and ruined it all.

  “I’m leaving today,” her mom said. “Back to New York.”

  Emily’s head snapped up to attention. “You are?”

  Her mom nodded. “I was never planning on staying. I just needed to see you. And when it dawned on me where you might be I dug up a phone number of one of the locals, Karen, I think her name was. I just became more and more furious on the drive over and when I got here and saw you it all just exploded out of me.”

  This, Emily realized, was her mom’s attempt at an apology. The likelihood of her actually saying sorry was slim, but in her own kind of way, she was explaining herself and, in doing so, apologizing for her behavior.

  “You know how hard I find it to control my mood,” her mom continued. “I’m trying some new meds at the moment. I’m always more wobbly when I’m changing the dose or type.”

  Emily shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her mom had heaped years of responsibility on her shoulders and had always justified her behavior like this—either it was the meds, or it was because she hadn’t taken them, or the dose had changed, or the type had changed. It was the same story every time and Emily just didn’t have it in her to listen to it anymore.

  “I need to get on,” Emily said, standing. “The chickens need feeding and I have to walk the dogs.”

  Her mom nodded and let Emily’s hands slide out from under hers.

  “Is there anything I can do?” her mom asked as she walked away, “Before I leave?”

  “Actually,” Emily said, hitting on sudden inspiration, “wait one second.” She rushed upstairs and rummaged in her bedroom drawer for the key that didn’t seem to open anything. She found it, the iron cool beneath her palm, then ran back down to her mom. “Do you know where this key belongs?” She unfurled her hand, showing the key to her mom.

  Patricia squinted. “Your dad had a lot of keys.”

  “I know,” Emily said. “I’ve worked out where most of them go. But not this one.”

  Patricia looked closer. “It looks like one of the vault keys. They were long and silver like this.”

  “Vault?” Emily asked.

  Her mom nodded. “Yes, in the wine cellar in the basement there are some vaults. Your dad used them for documents, some jewelry as well, I think.”

  Emily thought of the pearl necklace and letter she’d found in the safe in her father’s study. Perhaps there would be more of the same in the vaults her mom was talking about.

  Patricia looked up. “I’d try the wine cellar if you haven’t already.”

  Emily didn’t want to admit to her mother that she didn’t even know of the existence of the wine cellar in the basement, that after over six months in the house she had only stepped foot down there once in order to get the boiler working.

  “Thanks, Mom, I will.”

  Emily showed her mother to the door. At the threshold, her mom lingered for a moment.

  “I’m proud of you, Emily Jane,” she said finally.

  “Thank you, Mom,” Emily stammered.

  She had never thought she’d hear her mom utter those words. To hear them now, when she’d been at her lowest, was a gift she would treasure for the rest of her life.

  She shut the door and turned her back, her breath coming in sharp stabs. Seeing her mom had been an ordeal, but then she might have given Emily another clue to the mystery of her father. The key seemed to be burning a hole in her jeans pocket.

  She wasted no time, rushing down into the dank basement. She followed the corridors, looking around for the wine cellar, and found it finally, right at the back, almost as hidden as the ballroom had been.

  There were rows of dusty bottles of wine inside the cellar, but Emily was more interested in the small rusty vaults that sat beneath them. She sat on the cement floor and pulled the key from her pocket. She tried it in the lock of the first vault and to her utter delight it was a perfect fit.

  The door to the vault creaked open and Emily looked inside. Just like in the upstairs safe, she saw something shimmering and something that looked like a piece of paper. She pulled at the paper, her heart beating wildly at the prospect that it might be another note from her father. But it was not. It was a sketch of a lighthouse.

  “Not that damned lighthouse again,” Emily muttered. She was getting a bit sick of seeing it.

  She put the sketch back and reached in for the thing that was shimmering. Emily pulled her hand out of the vault and discovered sitting in her palm was a large diamond. She gasped, knowing immediately that it was real, that it was a piece of treasure her father had hidden. Had he done it for her? To keep it safely away from her mom’s clutches during the divorce proceedings? Or was it more evidence of his befuddled mind, that he would put a diamond of clearly considerable worth in a vault, lock it up, and forget about it?

  Emily held the diamond up to the light with one hand. The other clutched her mouth with disbelief. She knew what she was holding was valuable but she didn’t even want to hazard a guess as to how much it would sell for.

  She ran upstairs and hopped onto her computer, searching diamonds and local appraisers. Her heart skipped a beat as she read that the price could range between $3,000 and $27,000 per carat.

  Excited, Emily wanted to call someone immediately to appraise the diamond, but it was too early for anyone to be available to call. She started researching, reading all about quality and cut, and how color affected the price. Then she read about diamond certification and leaped up.

  She raced back down to the basement, still unfamiliar with the layout of the rooms and where the wine cellar was located. When she found it she rushed inside. The vault was sitting with the door still open. Emily reached inside and pulled out the sketch of the lighthouse. There on the back was the diamond’s certification information.

  Emily went back upstairs and started typing the information she had into her search engine. She hit enter and the figure that flashed before her eyes made her squeal with delight. The diamond was worth $10,000. Enough to partially fix the roof, although not completely replace it, with some left over to replace the items that had been ruined in the storm.

  Emily sat back in her seat, stunned. She felt like her dad was communicating with her from wherever he was—Barcelona or heaven or somewhere else entirely. He had left this gift for her and hidden it so she could only find it when she needed it the most.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to the air.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  On the white covers of Emily’s bedspread, the diamond gleamed up at her, the light of her bedside lamp making it glitter. On the bed beside it lay the certificate of authentication, the lighthouse sketch on the other side visible through the paper.

  Emily sat at the head of the bed,
her phone wedged between her ear and shoulder, listening to the drone voice of a diamond seller on the other end. As she listened, her attention was transfixed on the diamond. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She rolled it in circles gently with a fingertip, only half listening to the telephone conversation.

  Just then, Emily realized that the line had gone silent.

  “Okay, thank you,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She hung up the phone and sat back against the headboard, pondering the mystery of the diamond. Why would her father own such an item? As much as she wanted to believe that it was an investment he’d made to ensure there was something left for her to inherit when the time came, she also couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection between the diamond and the lighthouse picture on the certificate. It certainly meant that her father knew the artist personally as they must have been together when he or she sketched the picture. There were only two other explanations that she could come up with. The first was that the diamond and lighthouse paintings had nothing to do with her father at all, that they were relics from his own parents, who had owned the house first. The other was that the diamond and its certificate belonged to the artist originally and that her father had specifically bought the diamond in order to get the lighthouse sketch. The former seemed farfetched, the latter less plausible to her than the idea that the artist and her father were connected through a personal relationship.

  Emily felt that same aching sensation in her stomach that she often felt when she attempted to decipher the riddle of her father. She hated speculating about him, though she did it often. But every possible scenario she came up with about his disappearance made her feel terrible, and this newest one—that he’d run off with his artist lover—made her feel worse than ever.

  She tried to focus on the positives rather than the negatives. Finding the diamond was an amazing stroke of luck. Since its discovery, Emily had been calling as many diamond sellers and auctioneers in Maine as she could find, attempting to garner information about selling diamonds. It was another thing she felt woefully under-informed about; the last thing she wanted was to rush into a sale and get screwed over by someone who could smell that she was a novice from a mile away, leaving her with less money than the diamond was worth. She just hoped that Daniel was right, that the fact it was summer at the moment meant that there wouldn’t be any more heavy downpours, because if the roof held for long enough, she’d be able to take a bit of time getting the sale of the diamond right before ordering for the patch job to be done.

  She picked up the diamond, still too utterly shocked by the beauty and grandness of it to accept that it was really one of her possessions. In another world—one where she was rich and the B&B was a huge success—she wouldn’t need to sell the beautiful diamond at all. She’d turn it into a pair of earrings and matching necklace. Or maybe she’d even keep it for her future wedding ring. It would be a way of feeling close to her father again, of having him walk her down the aisle on the day since he wouldn’t be there in person. But this was not a perfect world. This was a world with broken slate roofing tiles and rotten beams that needed replacing.

  Emily was jolted from her reverie by the sound of the phone ringing.

  “This is Anne Maroney from Maroney & Stone,” the voice on the other end explained when Emily answered.

  Emily had been hoping it would be a booking and her hopes fell, dashed by the realization that it was just another diamond seller.

  The woman on the other end continued. “I must say, the voicemail you left me was quite compelling! A lost diamond recovered from a vault after twenty years. The narrative really drew me in.”

  Emily felt herself brighten a little. Of all the people she’d spoken to so far, Anne Maroney was giving her the best vibes. She seemed kindly rather than just out for the money, and that really mattered to Emily. If she was going to part with something so precious of her father’s, she wanted to do it right, and for it to be for a good person.

  “I thought you may be able to book in a meeting with me,” Anne said. “It could take place at my office in Maine, or I could come to you. I must confess, I had a look on your website and thought your B&B looked absolutely stunning. So my preference would be to come to you.”

  “Oh!” Emily said, delighted. “Well, that would be great if you don’t mind the drive. I’d be very happy to meet you here.”

  “Wonderful!” Anne replied.

  They booked a meeting to take place in several days’ time, just after Emily’s Fourth of July weekend cutoff. Anne’s schedule wouldn’t permit an earlier meeting, and though Emily knew it would be an agonizing wait for her, she had felt such warmth from Anne that she was certain this was the best course of action. Still, it was a risk to leave it so long. If there was another storm over the weekend that made the B&B leak again it would be a disaster for Emily, not just financially but emotionally too. She wasn’t sure how many more setbacks she could take.

  Emily took a small mahogany box—another one of her father’s trinkets—and placed the diamond inside, then set it on the bedside table. Despite the relief of knowing that there would be money coming in from the sale of the diamond in the not too distant future, Emily also knew that the amount it fetched at sale would only be enough for the patch job on the roof. Replacing the rotten beams was going to cost significantly more, and acquiring enough money for that was going to be significantly harder. With every day that brought her closer to the Fourth of July, and every day that the B&B stood empty, Emily was starting to accept the very real and startling reality of leaving this all behind—the B&B, Sunset Harbor, the friends she had made… and Daniel.

  So she had begun the task of mentally preparing. She stood up and pulled out one of the empty suitcases she’d stashed beneath the bed. She had already secretly packed one bag full with her stuff and was now moving onto the next. Her hope was that if she prepared for the worst then fate would intervene and throw something her way, some kind of lifeline, just like it had done with the diamond. Emily wasn’t usually a superstitious person, but she felt that on this one thing she ought not tempt fate, and so was packing bags to throw it off.

  As she folded some sweaters and placed them in the suitcase, she laughed to herself as she realized just how illogical that thought process really was. But her laughter quickly turned into tears at the thought of really leaving this place. She’d become attached to the house, the town, the people. Nowhere else felt like home to her now.

  Emily couldn’t help herself. She’d gone through so many trials and tribulations recently. She’d hardly even had time to process her mom’s visit the other day and all the emotional dust it had stirred up. Unable to stop herself, Emily began to weep bitterly.

  Just then, she heard Daniel climbing the steps. She quickly dammed her tears, then shoved the half-filled suitcase into the back of her wardrobe. Daniel would think she was crazy if she told him she was packing to try and confuse fate and probably assume she was just running away.

  She heard Daniel knocking at the door and leapt innocently to the end of the bed.

  “Come in,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

  Daniel entered through the bedroom door, his arms full of replacement rolls of wallpaper to cover the yellow water stain the leak had caused in Room Two.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

  Emily realized that her face was still tear-stained and her crying had probably made her eyes red and puffy. She wiped the tears off her cheeks quickly as Daniel propped the wallpaper against the wall and came and sat beside her. When he got there, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Emily blubbered, feeling the tears well all over again at the sensation of human contact and affection.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Daniel soothed her. “You can cry if you need to. Is this about your mom?”

  Emily shook her head. “No. It’s the B&B. I only have a few days left to get some paying guests or the whole t
hing is over.”

  Daniel took her wet cheeks in his hands. “You’re very melodramatic, do you know that, Emily Mitchell?” he said. “Nothing’s over. Do I have to remind you that you just discovered a ten-thousand-dollar diamond in your basement?”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “Even so, I don’t think there’s anything melodramatic about the very real prospect of losing one’s business.”

  “You won’t lose the business,” Daniel insisted. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “But I haven’t had a booking for weeks,” Emily contested. “And the Fourth of July is just around the corner. The money from the diamond will only be enough fix the roof, not keep the place afloat. And what’s the point of a fixed roof anyway if there aren’t any guests to enjoy it?” She couldn’t help but frown. “So I’m not sure how you can be so certain that it will be fine.”

  Daniel exhaled and squeezed her closer to him. “Because this is just life, Emily. It throws these things at you to keep it interesting. Sometimes you’re down and out, sometimes you’ve got a beautiful girlfriend.” He winked at her. “I just think something will come up. You wait and see.”

  Emily instantly put her fingers in her ears. “Don’t tempt fate!” she shouted.

  Daniel laughed and shook his head. He gently removed her fingers from her ears.

  “I think you need a night out,” he said. “You’ve been cooped up in this place on the phone to auctioneers all day.”

  Emily perked up immediately. “You want a date night?”

  Daniel nodded. “It’s well overdue, don’t you think?”

  Emily agreed that it was. “Do you have something in mind?”

  But Daniel said nothing. Instead, his eyes twinkled mischievously as he stood and held his hand out to her.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Perhaps if you come with me you might find out.”

  “How very mysterious,” Emily said, taking his hand.

  Daniel led her down the stairs and out of the house. The sky was black and the moon barely a sliver. They strolled along the garden path hand in hand. With such little light, the foliage was dark and shadowy around them.