But just because Margie was like a human ray of sunshine, it didn’t mean that she deserved to have his grumpiness following her around the island. The poor woman had only been in town for a few days and she already had to see his face four times.
Hank started the car. It was best to leave her alone. He needed to get back to his regular life. Work. Dinners at the pizza shop. Quiet nights at the house.
And while it wasn’t the kind of life that his wife told him she wanted him to have before she passed away, it was the only life that felt right to him. How could he be happy again after she was gone? It seemed wrong. It hadn’t even crossed his mind until recently.
That was it. He needed to get back to normal. He reversed down the driveway and set his mind to focusing on work. Maybe he could actually get Morgan the justice she deserved.
Chapter 7
Margie could hear Hank’s car rolling down the driveway as she closed the front door. She turned around and faced the girl.
“Well! I’m finishing up painting one of the bedrooms, and I just need to run to the restroom first, so I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” replied Morgan.
Margie smiled and then quickly made her way to the bathroom. It wasn’t entirely true, of course, that she needed to rush off right then. Somehow she managed to keep up a coherent conversation until now, but she didn’t think it could last. She was still in shock – she couldn’t remember what she’d been saying! Maybe she wasn’t making sense!
She got to the bathroom and closed the door. What on earth had she gotten herself into? Yes, she wanted to know more about Kelly Allen. And yes, she thought that someday, she might reach out to Kelly’s kid and…what? Ask her if she ever wondered who her father was?
Margie sat down on the toilet. Her mouth was dry and her hands were sweaty. The last time that Hank stopped by, she’d only gotten Morgan’s name. She didn’t get a picture of the girl, and certainly not the girl herself.
She looked so…well, she looked shockingly like Jade. That was the most jarring – it struck her all at once. She had Jade’s eyes. She also had the same long dark hair as Jade, but they were close in age and Margie reasoned that it was just how girls in their twenties wore their hair.
It didn’t mean that they were related. It was entirely possible that Kelly was confused all those years ago – or perhaps that she was lying. There were a hundred possibilities that explained it all without completely turning her life upside down.
Margie flushed the toilet – for appearance’s sake – and took a look at herself in the mirror. Her skin was a bit pale, but she doubted that anyone would notice that. She washed her hands and dabbed her face with a towel.
This was not how she expected her day to go, but she couldn’t just turn this poor girl away. Though…did Hank say something about trespassing? Or did she imagine that?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that this young woman recently lost her mother – a woman who Margie met over twenty years ago, and they didn’t leave on the best terms. Maybe the poor woman really did just need some help that night. And whatever the truth was, whatever Kelly’s reasons were for showing up, Margie regretted how their conversation went. That night haunted her.
And though it felt like all of this was happening quite suddenly, with Morgan literally showing up on her doorstep, for Margie it was over twenty years of wondering. It was time for her to figure it out.
Margie left the bathroom and found Morgan just where she left her. The poor girl must be frightened, she decided – going from the back of a police car to a stranger’s home.
“Well! I must say it’s very exciting for me to have a guest. I only just moved in here a few days ago.”
“You have a beautiful home,” said Morgan, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. “I’d be happy to help with any painting or projects that you’re working on.”
“That’s very nice of you, but you certainly don’t have to –”
“Or of course I could pay rent. Or – like a hotel room fee?”
Margie laughed. “Please don’t worry yourself with that. Would you like something to drink? Or eat? I do have some leftovers in the fridge.”
“I would love some water,” said Morgan.
“I’ll grab you a glass, and then how about I give you the tour?”
“That would be great!”
Margie filled a glass with water and handed it to Morgan before leading her around the house – showing her where everything was in the kitchen, how to work the television in the living room, and each of the four bedrooms.
“Right now only my bedroom and one of the spare bedrooms actually has a bed in it. I’m running pretty low on furniture around here. And I also wanted to buy a bunch of chairs for the barn. Oh! Let me show you the barn next.”
Margie led her outside and told her about the rest of the property, explaining how her brother sold it to her and her plans for the barn.
“I went to the website for permits the other day, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I need to find out if there is an office in town that could help me.”
“I can help with that!” Morgan said, uncrossing her arms. “Please let me help, I would feel really bad staying here without doing something in return.”
Margie smiled. She did seem like a very sweet girl. Kelly raised her well. Margie felt a small tug of guilt, which she tried to ignore. “You know, that would actually be a huge help. I much prefer painting furniture to filling out forms online.”
“Then I’m your girl!”
They went back inside and as Margie finished painting, Morgan got on the computer for two hours, printing out forms and instructions.
Over the next few days, her anxiety surrounding Morgan melted. Margie decided it was best not to pry or ask anything about Morgan’s personal life – if Morgan wanted to share, she would. Instead, she focused on utilizing her help in getting the house and barn up to speed. Morgan proved to be quite the little helper and cheerful companion.
Morgan spent an entire day helping Margie clean up a few messes left behind in the barn by some of the workers that Mike hired. She took the time to read and understand all of the permit forms that they needed – she even went into town to make sure she had it all right. They filled them out together, and Margie felt confident that they were on the right track.
Mid week, Margie caught wind of a liquidation sale at a wedding venue on the mainland.
“Look at all of these nice things that they’re getting rid of,” she said to Morgan, showing her the pictures online. “I could really use a lot of this. The tables, all of these nice gold painted chairs.”
Morgan was immediately interested. “We could rent a U-Haul truck and buy everything that we can fit in there.”
Margie frowned. “But we have to rent that on the mainland, and how would we get to the U-Haul station? Would we leave the car there? Can we do that? And then ferry back to get it…”
“No problem! We park here, in Friday Harbor. We take the ferry over and I’ll order an Uber. It will actually work once we get back off of the island.”
“Isn’t that…dangerous?” asked Margie.
Morgan shrugged. “Not really. Isn’t everything dangerous if you think too much about it?”
“I guess,” Margie said with a laugh.
The next day, they walked onto the ferry, made the ride to Anacortes, and Morgan ordered an Uber to pick them up from the ferry terminal. Margie felt a bit nervous as they waited, but after a few minutes, a nice lady about her age pulled up to get them.
“Morgan?” she asked.
Morgan nodded. “Carol?”
“Oh this is much better than I expected!” whispered Margie. Morgan smiled.
It was just over a ten minute drive to pick up the truck; Margie was anxious to start the two hour trip.
“Are you sure that you don’t want me to drive?” asked Morgan.
“Oh I’m sure. Every time we moved, I was always the driver. Plus it’s
just a little bit bigger than the minivan that we used to have.” Margie laughed, remembering that she often felt like a bus driver throughout the years.
“It’s probably for the better. My dad says that I’m a bad driver.”
“Oh?” Margie couldn’t stop herself from asking a few questions now. “Where is your dad?”
“Oh, he’s back in Portland.”
“Does he know that you’re staying on the island?”
Morgan bit her lip. “Not exactly. He knows that I took a break from school. And he knows that I was staying with some friends in Seattle…”
“I see.”
“I mean, he wouldn’t be upset or anything. Well, he would be, but not because he doesn’t want me to be here. He’d just worry.”
“Well that is a parent’s main job.” Margie suppressed a smile.
Morgan sighed. “I know. I’m just trying not to worry him.”
“Well, I still think that you should be honest with him.”
“I know,” Morgan said with a nod. “I will be.”
It felt like a weight came off of Margie’s chest. Morgan had a dad! And the poor man was worried about her and waiting for her to go back to school, but he existed, and it wasn’t Jeff!
Margie’s spirits were high for the rest of the trip. Traffic and rain didn’t bother her one bit. They got to the liquidation place and bought a bunch of tables, chairs, table cloths and centerpieces. The prices were unreal – when she’d looked at buying some of these things new, the cost was five times as much! And everything was in great condition.
It didn’t escape Margie that this place must have failed in a spectacular way to have to sell off all of this new and nice stuff, but she tried not to let it worry her. Even if her business failed, maybe she could get a job as a medical assistant at a doctor’s office on the island.
They packed the truck almost entirely full and made their way back to the ferry. It was an all day endeavor, and by the time they got the truck back to Saltwater Cove, they were exhausted. They managed to unload everything but left the task of returning the truck for the next day.
“I need to make us some dinner!” Margie announced once they were finally back in the house.
“No please, let me. I bought the ingredients at the grocery store yesterday and I was hoping to make dinner for you for once.”
“Well isn’t that nice.”
Margie settled onto a stool at the kitchen bar, sipping on a cup of tea. This day couldn’t have gone any better. Everything she’d gotten for the barn was a steal, she found out that Morgan had a father, and it seemed like she and Morgan found one another at just the right time.
It still felt like fate brought them together for a reason – perhaps more than just buying furniture and painting rooms. And Margie was determined for her relationship with Morgan to go better than her relationship with Kelly.
Chapter 8
On Friday, Jade was able to get all of her work done before noon. To her surprise, when she sent her most recent project off to her boss, she got an email back saying that she should take the rest of the day off and get an early start on her weekend. This was sent in an email, though, so Jade felt like she should double check with her in person.
She knocked softly on her boss’s open door. “Hey, do you have a second?”
Madeleine waved her in. “Of course! Come on in. I was just looking over your email.”
“Does everything look okay?”
“Yes, as always. It looks great.”
“Oh, okay good.”
“I thought that you’d be out the door already,” said Madeleine, leaning back in her chair.
“I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t need anything else, and I really appreciate –”
“No, no. I’m all set. You did a great job on this, and I have plenty of time to review it before we have to present it on Wednesday. Seriously, go! I’m sure you’re dying to get out to the island to see your mom.”
“Okay! Thank you so much! If you need anything else please let me know.”
“Have a good weekend.”
Jade felt much better leaving now. She’d never gotten into trouble in the two years she’d been with the bank, but she always worried that just around the corner there would be a project that she couldn’t do or data that she didn’t understand.
Jade went to school to be a statistician and ended up learning a lot of different computer programming languages along the way. It was never her intent, but the programs were extremely useful to crunch large sets of data. She loved numbers and she loved solving problems, but since much of her programming knowledge was self-taught, she was always worried that soon the demands of her job would outstrip her skills and she would be seen as the fraud that she was.
She got back to the apartment and quickly packed a bag. Brandon wasn’t home – he was working a shift at the grocery store where he was a part-time manager. They’d agreed that Brandon would just do some part-time hours so that he could put more time and effort into his DJ’ing business.
Jade didn’t mind being the primary breadwinner – she wanted to support Brandon’s dreams. Plus, she really loved her job, even though she always felt like she was a bit under qualified, especially for the large salary they paid her.
Brandon said that she should have negotiated an even higher salary when she started, but she thought it was already too much to begin with. Her boss also gave her two raises since she started – neither of which Jade asked for. Though she was grateful, and she knew that it was supposed to mean that she was doing a good job, it also worried her that she may not meet their expectations. She used that fear to fuel continued study in her free time.
After getting to the ferry terminal early, Jade got onto the ship with plenty of time and started to feel herself relax. It was a cloudy day, and she spent the entire trip on the outside deck. She had a cup of coffee to keep her warm, plus she was excited to meet her mom’s newest tenant.
Jade got a somewhat scattered and brief overview of who this person was – it sounded like Chief Hank brought her by when she had nowhere to stay. It was so like her mom to take someone in like that. Growing up, all of Jade’s friends used to love coming over because her mom showered them with attention, love, and of course lots of freshly baked cookies. Her best friend Katie started calling her “second Mom.”
Her mom was waiting to pick her up from the ferry terminal, and Jade was a bit disappointed that the girl wasn’t there too.
“Where’s Melinda?”
Her mom laughed. “Her name is Morgan.”
“Oh, right.”
“And she’s back at the barn. I’ve been waiting all day for the plumber to show up to finish hooking up the bathrooms, so she volunteered to stay behind and wait for him.”
“Bathrooms? That’s pretty cool.”
“We have to have bathrooms! The barn can comfortably seat 220 people – and your uncle Mike started the process of adding bathrooms, but we had to finish a few details. Like the actual plumbing.”
“Minor plumbing details. This is turning into quite an operation.”
“I know,” her mom said with a sigh. “To be honest, I’m not even really sure that this is going to work out.”
“Why not? Are you running out of funding? I’d be happy to invest in this business,” Jade said with a smile.
“Oh you stop it,” her mom replied. “No, I was able to get a small business loan to get things up and running. But things do need to get off the ground in the next few months, so I can start paying the loan back.”
“I’m sure that it’ll all be fine. Now tell me about this girl who’s living with you. Is she some sort of con artist?”
Her mom gave her a stern look. “Why would you say something like that! She’s a very nice young woman. She’s just a little…lost right now, I think.”
“It’s a very con artist thing to have a sob story,” Jade said with a smile. She was kidding…mostly. But she didn’t want her mom to be taken ad
vantage of – a chronic problem for overly nice people.
“It’s not a sob story. Her mom was that lady that I knew, very briefly, years ago. The lady who was killed by the hit and run driver.”
“Oh! Well now I feel bad. I just wanted to make sure that, you know, it wasn’t anything weird.”
“I know honey. But don’t worry about me. We’ve actually been having a great week. Did you get those pictures that I sent of all the nice chairs that we got for the barn?”
“I did! And I’m excited to see them in person.”
When they pulled up to the house, they found the plumber’s truck parked out front and headed straight to the barn. He was already hard at work, but Morgan was nowhere to be found.
Jade didn’t get a chance to meet her until they went into the house; she was hauling a large laundry basket filled with linens.
“Morgan, this is my daughter Jade. Jade, this is Morgan.”
“Nice to meet you.” Morgan set down the laundry basket and offered a handshake.
“Nice to meet you, too. My mom is really putting you to work, isn’t she?”
Morgan laughed. “Not really. I had to sneak this in while she was away.”
“Are these some of the tablecloths that you got from that place?” asked Jade.
Morgan nodded. “I think they washed pretty nicely, so that’s a good sign.”
Her mom leaned over and inspected the basket. “Yeah, they do wash pretty well. But I will definitely need to iron them before we fold them. They’re already getting wrinkly.”
“I can iron them!” said Morgan. “I was thinking I could spread some towels on the kitchen table and iron them here – they’re just too big to do anywhere else.”
“Can’t you guys get some kind of laundry service for these?” asked Jade. “You’ll spend half of your time washing tablecloths and ironing them.”
Her mom shrugged. “Maybe down the line. But for now, I’m trying to see how much I can do myself.”
“Okay, that makes sense. I mean, I don’t even iron any of my clothes at home, so I couldn’t imagine ironing this. But whatever floats your boat.” Jade crossed her arms. “So Morgan, is this your first time in the San Juans?”
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