If Zoey hadn’t been wearing mascara, she would have given in to the impulse to cry. Partly because niece was right; their aunt had known and cared about Mr. Witherell. And partly because Ivy might not have known him as well as she thought she did. Also because Zoey realized her chances of finding out whether Marcus Jr. was Mr. Witherell’s son may have died along with the old man.
She warned Gabi, “Please don’t tell Aunt Ivy about this tonight. If she finds out, we’ll help her cope with it, but since there isn’t going to be a memorial service anyway, we should wait to make sure she’s rested and in good health before we break it to her.”
“Okay, but should we tell Mark? Just in case Mr. Witherell really is his grandfather?”
Zoey hesitated. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it would matter that much to him either way and he might blab it to Aunt Ivy. So let’s not.”
Gabi rose and pulled Zoey to her feet, too. “Let’s take a walk to the lighthouse, in honor of Mr. Witherell.”
As they strolled, Gabi told Zoey that her history teacher, Mr. Hallowell, lived next door to Mr. Witherell. He said that Mr. Witherell collapsed near his yard, probably as he was returning from his morning outing. A neighbor spotted him lying on the grass, but he had already passed away. “At least he died doing something he enjoyed. But I kind of wish that someone would have been there to say goodbye to him.”
Zoey gave her a side hug. “How about if, when we get to the lighthouse, we arrange shells to say, GOODBYE, MR. WITHERELL?”
“That’s too flashy for his personality. Let’s write it in the sand with our feet instead and then the tide will wash it away.”
Without a trace, Zoey thought mournfully. Just like his past.
When they returned to the house, Zoey was flustered to see Nick’s car still parked in the driveway. She figured if she used the back staircase, she could avoid another awkward interaction with him. But before she and Gabi reached the door, Mark and Ivy pulled up, so they went over to greet them.
Ivy emerged from the car with her hair in disarray and dark circles beneath her eyes. “I was hot so Mark put the roof down on the convertible,” she explained.
Take care of Aunt Ivy first, you can deal with Mark later, Zoey told herself as she helped her inside and Gabi followed, carrying her bag. Mark stayed in the driveway, talking on his cell phone. The women stopped in the kitchen so Ivy could get a glass of water.
“Hi, Ivy,” Nick greeted her. “Please excuse the appearance of your kitchen.”
“Only if you excuse the appearance of my hair,” Ivy jested.
Zoey used to enjoy the banter between the two of them but now she wondered if Nick was just humoring her aunt. He seemed sincere, but…
Ivy drank her water and announced, “I’ll tell you about my trip later, girls, but I’m so tired now, I need to go to bed.”
“Aren’t you hungry? I plan to make sea bass for supper and I baked chocolate ricotta muffins for dessert.”
“And they’re delicious,” Nick interjected.
Is complimenting my baking his way of apologizing? Zoey half-hoped it was. Maybe now that the sting of their earlier interaction had subsided a little, she could have a candid discussion with him about what he’d said.
“I’ll have a muffin for breakfast tomorrow,” Ivy said. “Zoey, take my arm, please. And Gabi, take my other one. I’m lightheaded from all that wind.”
“Would you like me to carry you up the stairs?” Nick asked, flexing his muscle.
Obviously, he was joking, but to Zoey’s dismay, her aunt replied, “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Nick wiped his hands on his jeans and scooped her up. Gabi and Zoey followed him as he carried her upstairs.
“Right here is fine,” she said when he reached her bedroom door. He carefully set her on her feet. “You’re not just the finest craftsman on the island. You’re also a true gentleman. Thank you, Nicholas.”
With a slight bow, Nick replied, “It’s always a pleasure, Mrs. Cartwright.”
After he went downstairs and her aunt stretched out on the bed, Zoey pleaded, “Aunt Ivy, I think we should call an ambulance. Or at least we should go to the ER.”
“Why? Who’s sick?”
“I meant because if you’re too weak to walk up the stairs—”
“Who said anything about being too weak? At my age, if a strong, handsome man offers to carry me up the stairs, I’d be a fool to say no.”
It was hard to tell to what degree her joke was covering up how crummy she felt. So as Zoey helped her with her bedtime routine, she tried to persuade Ivy to allow her to call her physician and report her symptoms. When her aunt refused, Zoey pleaded to at least let her take her blood pressure and pulse, but Ivy snapped, “That cuff gets too tight. Now shush before your nagging gives me a headache. All I need is a good night’s rest.”
Gabi eventually left to do her homework but Zoey stayed by her aunt’s side until she was snoring. Seeing the state Ivy was in, she felt even more comfortable with her decision not to tell her about Mr. Witherell passing until she was better rested.
Zoey figured that thanking Nick for carrying Ivy upstairs would be a good ice-breaker and went downstairs. But when she got halfway down the hall, she heard Mark’s voice coming from the kitchen and she froze, unsure whether she could summon the poise to be civil toward him after he’d brought their aunt home in such rough shape.
“Next week when Ivy’s in the hospital overnight, I’ve got someone coming over to tear up the attic floor. It’s all original wood up there, did you know that? Over two hundred years old.” He boasted, “I took some photos and showed them to a woodworker I know and he told me he’d pay this much for it.”
Mark must been showing Nick a figure because there was silence before Nick replied, “I know a guy who’d pay two-and-a-half times as much as that. He’s vacationing in the Bahamas this week but I can set you up with him when he gets back. I can remove the wood myself, no charge.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Let’s call it a peace offering. I know we’ve had, uh, a few words since we’ve reconnected, but I think it would be mutually beneficial if we put that stuff behind us.” Nick lowered his voice and Zoey had to strain her ears to hear what he was staying. “This house is going to need a lot of work in the future and I’d like to be the one to do it.”
“So you’re bribing me?”
Nick chuckled in a way that made Zoey’s flesh crawl. “Let’s call it a favor. No strings attached. Trust me, you don’t want just anyone pulling up those boards. ’Cause if the wood gets cracked or chipped, it depreciates in value, big time.”
“Okay, I’ll consider selling the wood to your guy and letting you pull the boards up. But he has to make me an offer by Monday.”
“It’s a deal.”
Zoey felt sick to her stomach. She held her hand over her mouth, tripped up the stairs and raced down the hall to her room, where she flopped onto her bed.
Is Nick really so desperate to repay his debts that he’d behave in such an unconscionable manner?! she silently raged. How could he go behind Aunt Ivy’s back and propose a deal like that to Mark, especially after he claimed this wasn’t how he did business? And especially after I told him how much it would upset her if he started ripping the attic apart?
Nick knew how precarious Ivy’s health already was, but clearly he didn’t care about that. All he cared about was how he could profit from her house. He was exactly like Mark: deceptive, self-serving and opportunistic. Only he was worse, because unlike Zoey’s cousin, Nick could sustain a really convincing Mr. Good Guy act. And against all of her better instincts, she had fallen for it.
He must think I am such a sucker, Zoey stewed. And maybe I have been. Maybe Aunt Ivy has been one, too. But as Aunt Sylvia once said, “Enough is enough.”
She didn’t know how—especially now that Mr. Witherell had died—but Zoey resolved that before Nick laid a finger on the attic or Mark l
aid claim to the house, she was going to do whatever it took to find out whether her cousin was truly a Winslow or not.
Although Ivy appeared somewhat more refreshed when she came into the kitchen late Wednesday morning, she complained of chest pain twice. Zoey again suggested they call the doctor or go to the ER, but her aunt refused. “I’m going to be at the hospital for hours tomorrow. If anything is wrong with me, they’ll find it then.”
If nothing happens to you before then, Zoey fretted. “But—”
“Zoey, you aren’t going to change my mind, so you need to change the subject,” her aunt stated firmly. “Let’s go into the living room and chat about something else.”
Once they were both settled and sipping their tea—iced, not hot—Zoey asked, “What did you think of the facility?” She deliberately emphasized the clinical-sounding word.
“The residents were lovely and so was the staff. And the building overlooks the water. A pond, not the ocean, but it was pretty and they have a free shuttle to the public beach on the weekend. The food was decent, too. The chef caters meals to everyone’s tastes and medical requirements. But I’ll also have access to a kitchen if I want to make something myself.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’ll have access to a kitchen?’ It almost sounds as if you’ve made up your mind you want to move there.”
“Yes, dear, I’m leaning in that direction.”
Even though Zoey knew this was coming, hearing her aunt confirm it made her heart drop a beat. There’s still time for her to change her mind and there’s still time for me to get Mark to back off, she reminded herself. But how much time? “You wouldn’t move before September, would you?”
“No. There’s not an opening until then.”
Zoey relaxed her shoulders a little. “That’s good. By then you should have a better sense of how much the pacemaker is helping your energy levels and—”
“Zoey, even if I feel as energetic as I did when I was fifty, I’m still going to move into Waterside.”
So she’s not just “leaning in that direction”—she was just trying to break it to me gently, Zoey realized. “If it’s because there’s too much upkeep involved in taking care of a house this size, like I said, I’ll help you hire contractors—”
“That’s not it, either. And it’s not because of my memory. Or because of my forgetfulness, I should say.” Ivy chuckled at herself and set her glass on a coaster on the coffee table before growing somber. “It’s not even because I’m lonely for Sylvia, although not a day goes by when I don’t wish…”
Zoey leaned forward. “I know, Auntie. I wish the same thing about my sister, too.”
Ivy nodded, still not looking up until Moby paraded into the room and trilled at her and she allowed him to leap onto her lap.
“If it’s not for any of those reasons, then why do you want to move?” Zoey asked.
“It’s not that it’s not for any of those reasons. But none of those reasons alone is the deciding factor. It’s the combination and because the timing is right—for all of us. You could stay here until your job begins. And it’ll work out well for Mark, too, since he just found out he has until Labor Day to vacate his home.”
“He’s going to move to Dune Island in September? Then why would you need to move out?”
“No, he can’t move here—there aren’t enough job opportunities in his field. But he’ll start leasing the house out then, so he won’t have to worry about money if he doesn’t get a job offer as soon as he hopes to get one. He’s been so stressed out about securing employment, he’s lost almost twenty pounds in a month’s time. He’s not sleeping, either. I’m more concerned about his health than I am about mine.”
Zoey could have smacked her forehead. Her aunt had mentioned she was concerned about his employment situation and health once before, but she still felt blindsided to learn that was ultimately the ‘deciding factor’ in Ivy’s decision to move.
She had severely underestimated Mark’s cunning. He was well aware that for every reason he’d suggested Ivy needed to move—her health, her memory, her loneliness, the upkeep of her house—Zoey had already thought of a way to address the problem. So he had shifted his focus. Instead of merely playing up his aunt’s declining health and other challenges, he’d apparently been playing up his own.
That explains why she was always so quiet during those marathon phone calls with him—he must have been giving her a sob story about how tragic his situation was. Especially how his health was suffering. He knew she’d be upset about him losing his appetite! She could only imagine what else he’d whined to her about whenever he was alone with her.
The brilliance of his scheme was he knew Zoey couldn’t do a single thing to change his situation, the way she could for Ivy. Zoey couldn’t make an employer hire Mark. Nor could she improve his health or cause him to gain weight. For all she knew, he hadn’t applied for a single job and he’d purposely been working out for ten hours a day in order to lose weight. But all that mattered was he’d convinced Ivy he was suffering. And a lifetime of experience had taught him that she’d do whatever she could to rescue him. Including moving into an assisted living facility.
Ivy continued, “He’s got it figured it all out, down to the penny. I don’t have quite enough funding to cover the assisted living costs, but he’s willing to share the profits from leasing out the house.”
That’s big of him. “You’ve told me why you’re not unwilling to move and you’ve explained how the timing and the move is good for me and good for Mark, but I still haven’t heard you say this is what you really want to do, Aunt Ivy.”
“Oh, I know it will be an adjustment, but I’ll get used to it.” She laughed. “I’d better—because if I change my mind, I won’t get my down payment on the facility back and I can hardly afford that as it is.”
“When is that due?”
“Well, today I have to place a call to the trust fund executor and work out a few details, but the assisted living director is willing to wait until the fifteenth.”
“Of September?”
“Of June. This coming Monday.”
Zoey hopped to her feet. “Uh-oh, I think I hear my phone ringing. That might be the library director.”
Her phone wasn’t ringing; her ears were. She ran up the stairs, so frustrated that if it wouldn’t have upset her aunt, she would have run up the attic stairs, too. And then she would have climbed the ladder and stood on the widow’s walk and screamed so vociferously, the islanders would have told stories about it for generations to come.
Chapter Twelve
Since Ivy’s pre-op assessment process was slated to take two hours, Zoey sat in the hospital lobby, using her phone to research all the Melissa Carters in North Carolina. After staying up half the night contemplating how she could prove Mr. Witherell was Marcus Jr.’s father, the only plan Zoey had come up with was to contact his one living relative and ask her outright. It was a long shot—a very long shot—and she was dreading the conversation, but she was now decidedly desperate enough to give it a try.
She narrowed her list down to three Melissa Carters she thought might be related to Mr. Witherell and gave them a call. The first number was no longer in use. The second number was answered by a child who said Melissa Carter was her nana who had gone to heaven when he was eight. No one answered the third number she called, so Zoey left a voicemail.
Afterward, she walked along Port Newcomb’s waterfront, purchased clam chowder from Captain Clark’s and ate it on their deck overlooking the water. It was an overcast day and while she usually enjoyed watching the large ferries docking and departing, today the low thrum of their engines set her teeth on edge. She kept checking the time on her phone; she’d asked the receptionist to call when Ivy was done. Since she still hadn’t heard anything, she returned to the pre-op department.
“How much longer will it be until Ivy Cartwright’s assessment is done?” she asked the receptionist.
“She… th-they had to take her up
stairs to cardiology. The nurse was supposed to call you. I’ll go get her. She can explain it better.”
Zoey’s legs felt hollow as she waited for the nurse to come out. She explained her aunt had been exhibiting symptoms—sweating, chest pain, lightheadedness—consistent with a pulmonary embolism. After additional tests, she’d been admitted to the hospital.
“This is the best place for this to happen. If she hadn’t come in for the assessment, we might not have caught it in time. I’ll take you to her.”
“Thank you,” she said even though she didn’t feel grateful. She felt terrified. And guilty. She should have tried harder to convince her aunt to go to the ER after she’d spent the night at the assisted living facility. And she definitely should have tried harder to stop Mark from taking her off-island in the first place.
At the cardiology wing, she was informed the doctor would be out to see her shortly. She took out her phone and numbly tapped Gabi’s number, but her cell was turned off, as usual. She left a message and then a text. Mark had gone back to Boston on Tuesday, but she figured he’d want to know. When he didn’t pick up, she left a voicemail and a text for him, too. She felt so desperate to talk to someone that she called Kathleen but when she couldn’t reach her, she didn’t leave a message.
Three phone calls and that’s it. That’s my entire family, she thought. And if Aunt Ivy dies… She sniffled, on the cusp of weeping. Too bad she didn’t keep a tissue tucked in her sleeve, the way her aunt did. The reminder made her sadder, so she called Lauren, but her friend must have been at work and couldn’t answer her phone.
Shortly afterward, the doctor came out and said Ivy was resting comfortably. He explained they’d given her medication to try to break up the clot. If it didn’t work, they’d resort to surgery. And he said she’d be in the hospital for five to seven days.
Aunt Ivy's Cottage: A totally gripping and emotional page turner Page 23