A Family Affair: Fall

by Mary Campisi

  The shuffling turned into the faint click of a cupboard opening and then the clack of a drawer. Now the robber was after the mother lode! Pop swung the BB gun in the air and took aim into the darkness a half second before he switched on the flashlight. “Hold it right there!” The circle of light illuminated the figure, cast a halo around the red curls, the white face.

  “Lucy?” Good Lord in heaven, it was her! Oh, but his prayers had been answered. His very own Lucy stood before him, pizzelle in hand, as real as the last time he saw her. His gaze devoured her eyes, nose, mouth, traveled to her neck, landed on her protruding belly. He squinted, once, twice, zeroing in on that belly that wasn’t the result of too many pizzelles. “Lucy?”

  “Hi, Grampa.” She inched toward him. “I’ve come to live with you.”

  The End

  And that’s it for now! Next up we’ll head to Magdalena for A Family Affair: Christmas, a novella. The town is preparing to celebrate the holidays when a snowstorm hits and threatens to ruin the festivities. But that’s not the only threat blowing into town…Pop’s son is here from California to enjoy Christmas with his father, but when he leaves, he’s taking Pop with him…or is he? Will the town give up the Godfather of Magdalena, or will they show Pop’s son that when we open our hearts, anything is possible…even second chances? Stay tuned!

  Many thanks for choosing to spend your time reading A Family Affair: Fall. I’m truly grateful. If you enjoyed it, please consider writing a review on the site where you purchased it. (Short ones are fine and equally welcome.) And now, I must head back to Magdalena and help these characters get in and out of trouble!

  If you’d like to be notified of my new releases, please sign up at my website: http://www.marycampisi.com.

  Bonus Material:

  I love creating secondary characters—they can be so complicated and yet so very intriguing. I’ve often wondered how they’d react if they were given the opportunity for their own story.

  Well, the opportunity has arrived!

  I plan to introduce people from That Second Chance Series to A Family Affair’s Magdalena, New York, starting with Simple Riches’ “Bad Boy,” Michael Androvich and “Good Girl,” Elise Pentani. They’ll both appear in A Family Affair: Winter, which is not going to make them one bit happy, seeing as they’d rather live in different universes than spend another minute in the same town. I guess that’s what happens when a person gets left at the altar... (Not saying which one, but it’s going to be brutal and humiliating.) I can’t wait for the residents of Magdalena to meet these two and see if they can help heal two broken hearts. With Lily’s curiosity and Pop’s matchmaking endeavors, it will be quite interesting...

  Note: The following characters from That Second Chance Series will appear in future A Family Affair books, though not necessarily in the order listed:

  Grant Richot (Pulling Home, That Second Chance Series, Book One)

  Angie Sorrento (The Way They Were, That Second Chance Series, Book Two)

  Adam Brandon (Paradise Found, That Second Chance Series Book Four)

  See you in Magdalena!

  It’s all about that second chance...

  Simple Riches is Book Three of That Second Chance Series. (These are stand-alone books tied together by a common theme—belief in the beauty of that second chance.)

  Alexandra “Alex” Chamberlain is a big city girl who knows nothing about close-knit families, sibling rivalry, or receiving an unsolicited opinion in the name of family. She’s been raised by an aunt and uncle who’ve provided her with a wealthy lifestyle and a fancy education, but have withheld what she craved most—love and acceptance. Her uncle has taught her to disregard everything but the bottom line on a balance sheet and she’ll do anything to earn his approval. She prides herself on excelling at her job which is selecting small towns to buy, flatten, and replace with luxury resorts. When Alex decides to investigate Restalline, Pennsylvania, as a potential site for the next resort, she enters the town under the guise of a researcher gathering information for a documentary. Her uncle wants this project badly, and she’s not going to disappointment him.

  This town should be like all the others. Only it isn’t. This town has the Androviches, a family who values hard work, honesty, and doing the right thing. And this town has Nick Androvich, the town doctor with a battered heart who doesn’t quite trust her, but can’t deny the mutual attraction.

  Oh, but it’s going to get messy when the truth about Alex’s real purpose for being in Restalline sneaks out...and the truth always does. But fear not, the town is not going to sit by quietly and watch this meant-to-be-together couple lose their happily ever after…

  That Second Chance Series

  Book One: Pulling Home

  Book Two: The Way They Were

  Book Three: Simple Riches

  Book Four: Paradise Found

  Book Five: Not Your Everyday Housewife

  Book Six: The Butterfly Garden

  Simple Riches

  Prologue

  She stared out the window, waiting. They would be back soon, wet and dripping from the water, and then it would be time for breakfast. Oatmeal with yellow raisins, two sprinkles of brown sugar. Her stomach grumbled. She leaned forward, pressed her nose against the glass. The water was dark today, the waves loud and mean-looking, roaring when they hit the rocks and burst apart. She wished she could run outside right now, in her nightgown, fast, all the way down to the beach, with the sand between her toes, the salt stinging her face as she flung herself into the water. But she’d promised them she wouldn’t. Next year, Daddy told her. Next year, you can come with us and I’ll show you what heaven looks like.

  She couldn’t wait until she was nine; then she could go with them, see what they saw, see Daddy’s heaven. Just the three of them. It had always been that way, unless she counted Chessie next door. She guessed she was as close to a relative as she had. Chessie was like an aunt, kind of big, with a soft voice and a shiny black braid. She’d miss her when they left next week, but Chessie said she’d save all the best seashells for when they came back next summer.

  Her stomach growled again. She squinted out the window. Maybe she should go to Chessie’s, bring over the oatmeal and raisins, see if she’d fix them, maybe give her an extra sprinkle of brown sugar. Maybe… no, she would wait.

  She picked up the mirror Mommy and Daddy had given her yesterday. It was blue and green with a long handle and the most beautiful jewels all around: red, green, blue, yellow—sparkly and bright. She turned it from side to side, stared into it, blew her breath onto it. The true jewel is in the mirror, her father had said. Look into it, Alexandra, look into it and see the jewel. Where? Where was it? Where?

  The red numbers on the clock moved forward, one click at a time… 8:24…8:32…8:51. She put the mirror down, got up and went into the kitchen, grabbed a graham cracker from the cupboard…9:11…9:15. Nibble, nibble, nibble…9:38…9:59…10:00. She brushed her hands against each other, watched the sugary crumbs fall in her lap.

  Maybe she should go down to the beach, dig for sand crabs, look for her parents. Maybe… no, she would wait.

  10:05…10:07…10:13. She pressed her nose against the glass again, harder this time. Her eyes were starting to burn like they did when she got suntan lotion in them. Mommy knew how to take care of that…she put drops in and told her to blink, blink, blink. Daddy told her to cry and it would wash everything away. She swiped a hand across her nose. I’m crying now, Daddy. See? I’m crying now and it still hurts.

  Maybe something was wrong…wrong, wrong…very wrong. At 10:29, she jumped up and ran out of the house.

  ***

  “Look at her.” The woman with the shiny necklace and smelly perfume shook her head. “That blonde hair all knotted up…and those feet. They’re filthy. She looks like an urchin, Walter.”

  The man, tall with a deep voice, said, “Not in front of the child, Helen.”

  “Oh, Walter, for heaven’s sake, she hasn’t spoken
a word since we got here. For all we know there’s something wrong with her. A genetic malformation…” The woman patted her big, yellow-white hair in place. “Who knows? Between that brother of yours and that Russian woman—” Her voice dropped. “She could be deficient.”

  “Peter had the IQ of a genius,” the man said. “And Nadia certainly was more than borderline functional.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The man pinched the top of his nose, let out a long breath. “What I know is that my brother and his wife are dead, and this child is headed for the orphanage if we don’t take her in.”

  The woman named Helen sniffed, her blue eyes darting to the corner. “I don’t think we should rush things. Couldn’t we at least have her tested? Just to be certain there isn’t a deficit of some sort.”

  “There’s no deficit,” the man said, his voice stiff. “She’s just lost her parents, for God’s sake. She doesn’t know us from the stranger on the street. How do you expect her to act?”

  The woman pinched her red lips together. “I’m sure I have no idea. I never had a brother who slept under the stars and believed in karma. For all we know, she’s been weaned on magic mushrooms and has no brain cells left.”

  “Peter was an artist, not a junkie.”

  The woman laughed. “Walter, this self-righteous attitude does not become you.” Pause. “Or is that guilt I hear?”

  “That’s enough.”

  She ignored him, laughed again. “It is guilt. I think I’ll bask in the glory of it. The great Walter Chamberlain in a moment of guilt. How utterly…unique.”

  “I said that’s enough.”

  “I’m not going to be stuck with this child because you feel guilty about cutting your brother off from the family money. Neither should you. You gave him a choice and he took it.”

  “I thought he’d come back.” The man ran his hands over his face and his words softened. “After a month, maybe two…”

  “He didn’t want the money, Walter.”

  “But he could have had anything. Instead, he chose this?” He swept a hand around the room. There was a red and gold couch, three folding chairs, and an easel. “This is what he wanted?”

  The woman walked up to him, raised her face to meet his. “He wanted freedom, the one thing you couldn’t give him…or take away from him.” She stepped back, opened her purse. “I’m going outside for a cigarette while you decide what to do about her.”

  The girl hugged her knees closer, her eyes following the lady’s yellowish-white head out the door. They’d been talking about her. The tall man named Walter looked like Daddy in an old kind of way. Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen. That’s what they’d called themselves. How could they be her aunt and uncle? She didn’t have any relatives. Just Mommy and Daddy and herself. Just the three of them. That’s all it had ever been. Mommy! Daddy! Come back!

  “Alexandra?” The man, Uncle Walter, was looking down at her.

  She lifted her head, stared back at him. Maybe the policeman was wrong. Maybe the man and woman they found washed up on the beach three days ago weren’t really her parents after all. Maybe they just looked like them…Maybe…

  “Alexandra?” he said again. “Do you hear me? Can you understand me?”

  Uncle Walter had said something about losing somebody. Maybe Mommy and Daddy were just lost. Maybe he was going to help find them.

  “Aunt Helen and I are going to take you back with us…to Virginia.”

  She opened her mouth. “Mommy…” She sucked in a gulp of air. “Daddy…”

  He shook his head. His hair was the same brown as Daddy’s. “I’m sorry, Alexandra. They’re gone.”

  Gone. “Can you find them?”

  “No. I can’t.” He looked out the window toward the ocean. “They’re in heaven now.”

  She bit her lip hard, harder. They’re in heaven now… The sound of the waves beat in her ears… heaven…heaven…heaven.

  “I promise you, Alexandra, I’ll make it up to you.” Her uncle’s voice reached her from far away. “I’ll give you everything that should have been your father’s. He didn’t want it, but you will. You’ll see.”

  Chapter 1

  Arlington, Virginia

  26 years later

  “You’ll save the maple tree, won’t you?” The man rested his hands on the desk. His fingers were gnarled and weather-beaten, the nails thick with yellow deposits. “You know,” he said, his faded blue eyes on Alex, “the one I showed you yesterday.”

  Alex looked away and rifled through the papers in front of her. This was the part she hated the most, looking into their eyes, seeing the loss, the pain of leaving, the agony of knowing their homes would be bulldozed. Gone. Nothing left but snapshots, bunches of them, stuffed in shoeboxes or photo albums in a vain attempt to hold onto a moment in time that would prove as elusive as a grain of sand. Some left the remembering inside their head, buried under layers of inconsequential nothingness, crowded between mounds of garbled data. Underneath it all, crammed together, was a history, a life— a remembering that faded and disintegrated with time.

  Was it really so much to ask that a tree be saved? At least it could serve as a landmark for what had been before, a compass of sorts to lead generations of families back to their ancestral home. A simple tree. “I made note of it,” Alex said. “And we’ll certainly try—”

  “Mr. Oshanski—” Her associate, Eric Haines, cut her off in his typical lawyer style. “We’ll make every attempt to save your tree.” He smiled, a quick flash of white, before adding, “And hundreds of others like it.”

  The old man leaned back in his chair, blew out a long breath. “My father planted that tree when my sister, Emma, died. She was only two. Scarlet fever, they said.” He stared at his hands, clasped them together. “He told us it was Emma’s tree and every time we looked at it, we should think of her.”

  They could promise to save one tree, couldn’t they? Alex looked at Eric, waited for him to tell Mr. Oshanski he’d make certain the tree stayed. For Emma. But Eric was already shuffling through the document in front of him, reaching for his pen.

  “We’ll see what we can do. Now, let’s get the rest of this paperwork out of the way and we’ll be all set.”

  The old man smiled at them. “Thank you.” His eyes were wet. “Thank you for doing this for me. For Emma.” He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose. Twenty minutes later, Mr. Oshanski shuffled out of Alex’s office, a cane in one hand, a check in the other.

  “We just made Leonard Oshanski one rich old man.” Eric tossed his pen on the desk, leaned back, and clasped his hands behind his head.

  Alex fiddled with her own pen, a very expensive one, black with gold. “You did mean what you said to him, didn’t you? About saving the tree?”

  “Why do you always doubt me, Alex? Of course, I meant it.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  “It’ll never happen, though. You can’t bulldoze around one tree. Think of the time and money it would cost.” He shrugged. “Even if that wasn’t an issue, the heavy equipment would kill the roots. The tree would never make it and then, somewhere along the line, you’d have to come back in and dig it out. More time and even more expense.”

  Alex stared at him, wondering how she’d ever thought there was a soft side to this man. How could she not have noticed the pauses, so calculated, the way he played with words, spoken and unspoken, twisting and massaging them to create his own justifications, state his own case? He was a lawyer, and a damn good one. Negotiation was his forte. That’s why WEC Management employed him as legal counsel, and that’s why it was one of the premier developers of exclusive vacation resorts in the country. Eric Haines knew how to make his words flow in a voice that wrapped itself around the listener, soothing, calming, lulling. There was something about the way he looked at people, as though they really mattered, as though he really cared. He could convince them that signing over their property was the right choice, th
e noble choice, for the betterment of family and personal interests. And it all seemed so genuine, so damn real, that people believed him. Even people who knew better.

  “So, basically, you had no intention of saving that tree?”

  Eric sat up, rifled a hand through his hair. It was a pale gold color, like wheat in a field. “Why is it that every time we finish a deal, you go through this thirty-second guilt trip, which, by the way, only lasts until Walter gives you his nod of approval and you see your name in the Wall Street Journal?”

  “It’s not a guilt trip.” She stared down at Leonard Oshanski’s signature. Each letter was well formed, written with pride and confidence that right would be done. “The man just signed over thirty-three acres of land and all he’s asking is that you save one tree.”

  “Wait a minute.” Eric slid his wire-rimmed glasses to the bridge of his nose. “He received a chunk of money for those thirty-three acres. Let’s not pretend it was a charitable donation.”

  “I know that.” Money. It was always about money.

  “And you heard me say I’d try.” He shrugged. “So I will, but I’m telling you the architect is going to laugh in my face.” His voice softened. “I’ll buy the old man a new tree. You can pick it out. What kind did he say it was, again?”

  “Maple. And it wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Says who? We’ll get the same size, plant it in the same spot, who would be the wiser?”