“Oh,” she said then, her eyes falling on me and then narrowing. “Yes, she’s here.” She held out the phone.
“Hello?” My stupid heart leapt with hope that it would be Luke, that he had finally realized what we had was valuable.
“Miss Tanner?” Not Luke said on the other end.
I slumped. “Yes, this is Addison Tanner.”
The man on the other end was a lawyer for Mrs. Easter, and he asked me to meet him at his office at five but didn’t explain why.
“There are Tuckers involved, I can smell it,” Mom said when I told her about the call. “You should never have spoken to that Michael Tucker, Addie. I don’t care how hot his ass looked in his shorts.”
“Mom!” Amberlynn laughed.
I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t noticed. His ass did look pretty nice. And so did the rest of him, really. But Mom was right. He was a Tucker. Better to stay far, far away.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said, having no idea why Mrs. Easter’s lawyer would want to see me. “I’ll go find out and tell you later.” I checked the clock over the doorway to see it was almost five now. I took off the half-apron I wore and picked up my bag. “Be back soon,” I said, heading outside.
The cool fall air was a relief. Sometimes too much time with Mom was overwhelming, and I’d been with her day and night for the better part of two weeks now.
5
Don’t Trust the Trust
Michael
“Did you know her really well, Dad?” Daniel was full of questions as we drove from the store into Singletree Square to meet with Filene Easter’s lawyer and find out what, exactly, was in this trust. Considering I hadn’t spoken to her at all over the years except for a few words last week when she’d fallen, I couldn’t imagine it would be much. Based on the few words she’d said—about watching me when I was a baby and everything—I did get the sense she was a little sentimental, so maybe it was some old photographs of me or something.
“No, not really.”
“Maybe she left you a ton of money, and then you can get me a Corvette.” he said hopefully.
“Even if I had a ton of money, you would not be getting a Corvette,” I assured him. “And she didn’t leave me a ton of money, I’m sure.”
“Maybe she left you a Corvette.” Optimism never flagged in this one.
“I never noticed her driving around town in a Corvette, Dan.”
“It was probably really nice, so she kept it in a garage and only took it out on special occasions.”
I smiled over at my grinning son. “And if that was the case, you’re pretty sure this car is destined to be yours one way or another, huh?”
“Well, you’re such a nice dad, and I know you want me to be happy.”
Wasn’t that the truth? “I do, buddy. And that’s why I wouldn’t give you a Corvette, even if I had one.”
We parked near the address Anders had given me. His office, it seemed, was next door to The Shack. I hoped we wouldn’t have a run-in with my ex. The last thing I needed was for Dan to tell her I’d been left a Corvette, though whatever was in this trust, I had no doubt Shelly would know about it sooner or later.
I held the glass door open for my son, and together we climbed the stairs just inside the small entryway. When we reached the landing, I was surprised to find Addison Tanner standing just outside the suite we were looking for, looking a tiny bit lost. She wore slim jeans with a longer shirt, and something about the casual but put together look appealed to me, making me hope I looked okay. I realized it was dumb—it didn’t matter what this woman thought of me. That didn’t stop my hand from going to my hair though, hoping it wasn’t sticking up in thirty directions.
“Hi,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
Maybe asking that question wasn’t the right move. Her open expression shuttered, and her brows lowered over those dark sad eyes. Her mouth opened, but before she spoke, her eyes slid sideways to take in Daniel, and apparently she thought better of whatever she’d been about to say.
“I got a call from this guy, Anders about poor Mrs. Easter. I have a meeting with him at five.”
“Us too,” Dan volunteered.
Addison’s brows rose now, and she looked between us.
“Did you knock?” I asked.
She crossed her arms. “No, is that how these door contraptions work?”
Dan grinned, but I was not going to respond to that question. I could play the sarcasm game too, but since he was here, it was my job to model good behavior. I knocked on the door. Hard. The sound of my knuckles rapping echoed around the small space at the top of the stairs.
“Thank God you were here to take care of that. Whatever would I have done?” Addison said.
I bit my tongue, but I also had to hide a smile. I liked her fire. More than I should have.
Daniel was snickering, and I poked a finger in his shoulder to shut him up. I was about to knock again when the door behind us flew open to reveal a short round man with little round glasses perched at the end of his nose.
“Well hello there,” he said, looking between us. “I’m afraid Dr. Kelly goes home by five each day. No one home, as it were.” He chuckled and took a step back. “Just popped out to make sure you weren’t knocking on my door. I’m expecting folks.” He moved to close the door, and I was relieved when Addison piped up.
“You’re not Augustus Anders, by any chance?”
“Why yes, last I checked, I was indeed.” He smiled and dropped his eyes, rocking a bit on his feet as if he was bashful about delivering this news.
“We’re your appointment,” I told him. “You said you were in Suite 2A.”
“Oh, no. I’m in 2B.” He pointed to the clearly marked suite number on the door. He didn’t appear to be older than fifty or so, but I was starting to wonder if he might be losing a few marbles.
“I’m Addison Tanner, and this is Michael Tucker, and his . . . son?” Addie looked at me, uncertain.
“Daniel,” I confirmed. “It’s my week, so he had to come along.”
“Sorry to be such a burden,” Dan muttered.
“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,” I told him. I could have phrased that better, but Dan knew how much I enjoyed having him.
Addie was smiling at him warmly, and even Daniel’s surly pre-teen heart seemed to feel the effects. “Nice to meet you, Dan,” she said. As my son smiled at Addison Tanner, a little twinge of admiration swelled in me for her. I liked people who spoke directly to my son instead of talking around him, like so many adults did to children.
“Well, well. Come in then,” said the lawyer. “Not sure why you didn’t just knock on my door.” He shook his head as if in disbelief at our stupidity. This was Mrs. Easter’s trusted attorney? I was becoming a little skeptical—he’d probably called the wrong people altogether. Of course Mrs. Easter did not leave anything in trust for me. She barely knew me. This guy had made a mistake—it appeared he might make them regularly.
We followed him into a small lobby and then through a door to an office with a window overlooking the square below. It was a nice view, and for a second I wondered what it would be like, to have an office job, to have chosen for myself. But as Anders settled himself behind the desk, his roly-poly physique propping him in his cushioned chair, I realized that a little hard work was probably good for me.
“Sit please,” he said, motioning to the chairs. Addison, Dan and I sat down. Addison seemed nervous, her hands fidgeting in her lap.
“As you know then, we are here to discuss the trust set up for the two of you by Mrs. Filene Easter,” he began.
A noise of surprise escaped Addison before she turned to give me a wide-eyed look, confusion clear on her face, “What?”
“Yes, yes,” the lawyer said, waving away this interruption.
“Wait,” Addison said, leaning forward and dropping a hand on the edge of his desk. “This is about Mrs. Easter? A trust?”
He looked at her as if she were a cu
riosity, something he hadn’t encountered before, blinking his big eyes behind the lenses of his glasses. “Why yes, didn’t I mention that on the phone?”
“Yes,” I said, at the same exact moment that Addison said, “No, you definitely did not.”
Then she slumped back in her chair, one hand resting over her mouth as if she could contain whatever sorrow might fly out. “Oh, poor Mrs. Easter. But a trust? Why would she leave anything to us?”
“Filene was ninety-three years old,” the lawyer said. “Natural causes, Ms. Tanner. Nothing to worry about.”
Addison nodded, still looking sad. I had felt a little down on hearing the news too, but the guy had a point. Ninety-three wasn’t exactly a shocking age at which to die. Only, she had seemed pretty spry last week.
“May I continue?” The lawyer looked between us. Suddenly Anders looked like a guy who had thirty clients waiting in the lobby and no time for this type of interruption.
“Sure,” Dan said, clearly eager to hear about the Corvettes coming our way.
“Mrs. Easter visited me just last Monday to set up this trust,” Anders said. “Very strange, really. She’d had no direct descendants, so had previously had plans to disburse her belongings to various charitable organizations—the Institute for Tasteful Taxidermy, the Chocolate Lab Rescue of Southern Maryland, and the like.
“However, last week she popped by and made a significant change to her final wishes, and that’s what I’d like to discuss with you now.” He looked up at us as if waiting for permission.
“Ah, okay?” I tried.
“Yeah, I guess,” Addison said.
Dan was practically bouncing in his chair. “Settle,” I whispered, and he stilled.
I hated myself for it, but the idea of having some unexpected cash to put toward the business wasn’t a completely unwelcome idea. I needed to build some extra space to house the growing custom furniture selection, and I knew if I could merchandise it correctly, I just might be able to shift the focus of the business. Farm supplies weren’t really my passion, but seeing the furniture I’d made by hand heading out the door to sit in people’s homes? That was what I wanted.
“Ahem.” Augustus cleared his throat and began to read. “This document represents the statement of the trust of Filene Josephine Tucker Easter.”
Addison let out an audible gasp beside me. “Mrs. Easter was a Tucker?”
The lawyer looked up, his eyebrows disappearing beneath the brim of the little hat he wore. “Mrs. Easter’s mother was a Tanner, but her father was a Tucker. And when she married, her name changed to Easter.”
I wasn’t sure Augustus understood why this news was so surprising to both of us, but figured maybe his impartiality in the age-old feud was what made him a good choice of attorney. The news was surprising to me too, though, and it gave me a new way to look at the strange things Mrs. Easter had said that day—about Addison and me, about the feud needing to end. Had she decided to end the feud herself? Was that what this was all about?
He continued reading, covering all the legal information, discussed Mrs. Easter’s lack of direct descendants, and then came the interesting part.
“This trust passes down my worldly goods, including the house at 54 Maple Lane and all of its contents, to Addison Agnes Tanner and Michael Joseph Tucker jointly.”
I felt my whole body go still. She’d left us a house? An entire house? Together? I shook my head in disbelief. Why? And what the hell were we supposed to do with it?
“The house, as it stands, requires improvements before it can be sold.”
That was an understatement. I thought of the old house behind the iron gates, the way the front porch sagged and the darkened windows sat cracked and eerie in the shadows of overgrown trees. Still, it was a big house, undoubtedly valuable. I could do a lot of the work myself and then sell the place to fund my store expansion. I didn’t like to capitalize on someone’s death, but this could be exactly what I needed.
The lawyer went on, “. . . and neither party named in this document may begin efforts to sell the property or its contents until such time as both have resided in the home for a minimum of six months.”
My eager thoughts crashed into a solid brick wall. What? She wanted us to live in the house? For six months each? Why?
“Once both parties have lived at 54 Maple Lane for six months or more, either separately or concurrently, and the required improvements have been made (see inclusion one for an itemized list of required and suggested repairs), then the house may be sold through whatever means the parties named herein deem appropriate, if that is their desire.”
I stared at the lawyer as Dan bounced at my side. Addison must have been just as shocked, because she wasn’t moving either.
Augustus put the document down and looked at us expectantly.
Addie’s mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything immediately, and I had no idea what to say. It made no sense at all. Of course we couldn’t jointly own and sell a house. We didn’t even know each other. Not to mention the underlying fact that we kind of hated one another.
“Wait,” Daniel said, rising to his feet and leaning over the desk. “She gave them her house? Together? That’s so weird. Isn’t that pretty weird? You’re a lawyer. Is that normal will stuff? To tell people they have to live together?” Daniel’s words were coming fast in his excitement and amusement, and the attorney kept trying to begin answering as Daniel kept forming new queries.
“Dan,” I whispered, and my son stopped talking.
“It’s unusual, yes,” Augustus said. “But not unheard of. And she doesn’t stipulate that you must both live in the house at the same time, exactly,” he pointed out.
Relief washed through me. Right. We didn’t have to live together. Why was part of me a little disappointed?
“But we have to live there for six months to sell it?” Addison asked.
“Correct. Or a full year if you do not live there concurrently.”
“Together,” Addison clarified.
“Yes.”
She looked at me then, as if evaluating my potential as a roommate. I stiffened. Why was some part of me wishing she’d decide that she did want to live with me? I definitely didn’t want to live with her.
“And this house,” I began, already knowing the answer. “54 Maple Lane . . .”
“Oh, man,” Daniel breathed, a chuckle beneath the words. “That’s the haunted house in the middle of town!” Daniel laughed out loud now, rubbing his hands together with excitement. “You guys own the haunted house! That place is so creepy!”
“That’s enough,” I said, making my voice stern and hard, and then regretting being harsh with him. This was a lot for all of us to process.
Dan sat back down, but a second later he was speaking again. “And doesn’t it say anything in there about a car?”
I elbowed him in the ribs, but Anders dropped his head back down to examine the document. “Oh, yes, you’re right young man. There is a car. Part of the property.”
Dan’s head whipped around to look at me, excitement in his wide eyes. I tried to give him a stern parental look. We’d discuss Corvettes later.
For a moment, no one said anything. Then Addison stood. “Why would Mrs. Easter leave her house to us?” she asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The attorney sat back, causing his chair to emit a whining protest, and he rubbed one hand down his chin. “Filene had no children or close family. She was part of both the Tanner and Tucker families, so perhaps this decision felt like the right thing. Keeping the property inside the family.”
I shook my head. “Do you think she knew what she was doing? Giving something so big to both families? These particular families?”
“I assure you, she was quite lucid when we last spoke. Mrs. Easter was not suffering dementia.”
“I just don’t get it,” Addison said, sitting back down.
“There’s one other thing here,” the lawyer said, picking up the document and reading ag
ain. “A sum of two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will convey with the house, to be used for the express purpose of enacting the repairs needed. This account is at the Singletree Credit Union and carries the names of both parties named herein. In the event the parties do not accept dispensation of the house and the sum, both shall be donated to the Singletree Historical Society with specific contents to be given to the Institute for Tasteful Taxidermy and the Chocolate Lab Rescue.”
I let out a whistle, long and low. That was a shit-ton of money.
“Would you like to dispute the trust?” Augustus asked.
For the first time since his pronouncement, Addie turned to face me, and as our eyes met. Something inside me wished fervently for her to say no. I didn’t understand why, but having Addison tied into something with me, even something this odd, gave me an unbidden sense of hope. Like I’d turned a corner in my life somehow.
But that was crazy. It had to be about the house, the money, the way it could change my life.
“I mean . . .” She said, trailing off.
“Maybe we should at least go see the house?” I suggested, looking for a way to prevent her rejecting this insane idea immediately. I was already envisioning the new addition to the store, my improved workshop, my furniture on display.
Her face cleared, the troubled furrow disappearing from between her brows. “Yes,” she turned back to Augustus. “Can we see the house?”
“Of course,” he said. “The house is yours,” he explained. He dug around in his pocket for a set of keys, leaned down to unlock a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a flat plastic bag. “In here is the deed, with both your names on it here”—he pointed to the line that listed our names—“and these are the keys.” My name was there, next to Addison’s on the deed to the house. It was surreal. Two sets of dark iron keys lay next to the document. “A little old fashioned maybe. Fitting, I’d say.”
“Great,” Addie said, reaching out for a set of keys. “Can you hold the deed for a bit? Maybe until we’ve had a chance to think? And talk.” She looked at me as she said this last part, and a warm thrill rose in my throat.
Falling Into Forever Page 3
