by Jenny Hale
She pushed the duvet off her legs and sat up, covering her mouth to stifle a yawn, having no idea why she’d woken so early until her tummy rumbled. They’d ended up not eating a thing last night. She made the bed, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. Then, with a quick comb through her hair, a change of clothes, and her things all packed, she grabbed her bag and headed downstairs, trying not to creak too badly on the way down.
The house was cold, as it usually was on winter mornings, the heat swirling in uneven waves down the hallway. She ran her hand along the curl of wood at the bottom of the banister. When she was little, she used to trace the curl all the way to the center. Shifting her bag on her shoulder, she stepped onto the hardwoods, the shiny boards slick beneath her socks as she walked. She rounded the corner to the kitchen, and threw her hand to her chest.
“Oh!” she said, nearly running David down, her bag making a smack on the floor when she dropped it. She picked it up.
“Sorry.” He backed up and let her enter the kitchen. “I was just coming up to tell you I’d made breakfast.” He was smiling that smile she remembered from last night as he looked down at her. “It’s nothing big. Just pancakes and coffee.”
“That sounds nice.” She hung her bag on the back of the kitchen chair.
There was an easy silence between them as they both filled their mugs and dished up their plates. David had cut a few strawberries for topping, or she could opt for the bottle of syrup on the counter. She chose the strawberries and then took her breakfast to the table, setting her food on the placemat.
David joined her. “This is Nina’s recipe.”
The idea that he was using Nan’s recipe made her feel possessive of Nan’s things in the light of morning, and she finally felt strong enough. “Can we talk about the house a minute?” she asked, changing the direction of the conversation.
“Of course.” He set his fork down, folded his hands, and put them under his chin, leaning on his elbows. She had his complete attention. “I would actually like to discuss our options,” he said. That formal phrasing rubbed her the wrong way again.
“And what do you think our options are?” she asked, running her finger around the top of her mug to expel the nervous energy that was building up inside. Something told her he wasn’t going to see eye to eye with her plan.
David took a deep breath, his broad chest showing beneath his sweater. “Well, there’s the option I’d choose…”
She waited, still, her stare bearing down on him, willing him to give her something she could live with.
“I’d like to buy you out.”
Realizing her mouth had dropped open, she clamped it shut and tried not to look as incredulous as she felt. He had to be kidding. But it was clear by his face that he wasn’t.
“You want me to just hand over my half of Evergreen Hill?” Her words had come out sounding hurt, despite her best attempt to keep emotion out of it.
He shook his head. “Not ‘hand over.’ Sell it for a reasonable price.”
She gritted her teeth, knowing she was about to ask what she’d accused him of asking. She couldn’t afford to match his offer and was being forced to beg. “What if I want you to give up your half?” She stayed sitting still, although it took every ounce of strength she could muster not to jump up and walk away from the table. “I want to run the business like Nan did. I want to pass the house to Sadie when I’m gone. It’s what Nan and I always planned.”
David got up, walked to the window and peered outside, although Leah wondered if he even registered the view. His shoulders were tense. “Well, that’s… a problem.” He turned to face her. “Because I don’t want to sell. And I’d like to clear the exterior buildings, build a swimming pool for the summer months, and make this a private residence.”
Leah could feel her dreams slipping away. He’d ruin historical property! “Well, that will not be possible. Both parties have to agree,” she said, trying to keep herself calm. It worked both ways. How had this gone so wrong? She should’ve started out by asking why he felt Nan had changed her will, not jumped straight to the conclusion—she’d known they wouldn’t concur but now all the laughter of last night seemed wasted, and that hurt too. “I have a family connection to this house that spans decades!” she said, standing up in her frustration.
David walked over to her side. He looked down at her, sincerity in his eyes. “So do I. In fact, my connection might be stronger. As you may know, Lydia Forester was my grandmother.”
Images of Lydia Forester swam around in Leah’s memory. She pictured her, draped in glamorous kaftan dresses, sipping cocktails with perfectly lipsticked lips. She remembered Nan always asking if anyone had seen her, then rolling her eyes good-humoredly and turning instead to Lydia’s daughter, June. Leah’s memories of June were much clearer.
While Lydia would have nothing to do with the business side of things most of the time, it was June who was always at Nan’s side, helping her. June was always outside at the weddings, running things back and forth to the kitchen. Leah used to slide around the ballroom floor in her socks while June set up for events and, every now and again, June would grab her hands and spin her around. Just like Leah, June had loved the business side, telling Leah that one day, maybe she could grow up and have a job like that. Leah was only six when Nan bought the house from Lydia.
“Your grandmother sold it to Nan because she didn’t want the burden of the house anymore. That’s what Nan told me,” Leah said.
David sat back down and Leah took a seat in front of her breakfast.
“That’s true,” he said. “My grandmother grew up in this house. It had belonged to her parents. When she couldn’t handle it financially and didn’t want to run the business anymore, she sold it to Nina.
“But my mom grew up here too,” he continued. “She was thirty-four when my grandmother sold it. My mom was devastated. She’d lived here her whole life. As I got older, and especially after my grandmother passed, Mom and I talked a lot about this place. It was magic for her, just like it is for you. My mother wished she could’ve done more to save it when my grandmother couldn’t afford it anymore. She felt guilty for not working harder, getting a job, doing something to bring in the income. She had these amazing stories to tell of her childhood, and she impressed upon me how important the house was for her and how sad she was that I wouldn’t have it growing up—I’m guessing that’s just how you feel about Sadie. So when I was in town, looking for a place to live, I decided to come and see it again, and I made a very unlikely friend in Nina. I can see why my grandmother liked her so much.”
Until that moment, Leah hadn’t seen the compassion on his face when he spoke about the house, the complete seriousness of his connection to Evergreen Hill. He’d barely scratched the surface for her of how this house came to be Nan’s, but she already felt the length of the story just by looking into his eyes. She’d known, vaguely, the ins and outs of the sale of the house, but the emotions involved hadn’t ever occurred to her. She and David weren’t much different from the sounds of it.
Leah was unable to speak. She’d had grand plans for this place. It was a chance for a new life for Sadie and for her. Her mind was racing as David got up and made them more coffee. When he sat back down, she was trying to think of a compromise. They could both live there. Maybe there was somewhere unobtrusive where he could put a pool. They could fence it off and landscape around it to give him privacy. He could live in the guesthouse and she could use the main part of the house for events.
“You know,” he said, “my mother told me that none of her family back then agreed with my grandmother selling the house, but nobody had enough money to help her.”
She took a bite of her pancakes, now cold, as the fire cracked in the other room. The smell of soot and the scent of the house took her back to late nights with Nan, when she’d guided Leah through some of the hard times. She wished Nan were there right now, to sort out this mess.
“The whole time my mother was g
rowing up, my grandmother had promised that this house would be hers. Then the bills started mounting and my grandmother—always the creative—thought she’d open it to the public. Having functions here would help her pay the bills with little investment. What she hadn’t planned for was its success.”
Leah knew all about its success. And if she wasn’t allowed to bring that back to life, she’d have no choice but to sell out. Surely that wasn’t what Nan had wanted.
David took a bite and looked down at his plate. “My grandmother never wanted to open Evergreen Hill,” he said, before looking over at Leah. “She only did that because she needed money. You know she told your nan everything—they’d been friends since they were kids. She’d confided in Nina, telling her all about her problems because Nina was such a great listener. When she’d heard Nina’s idea to run the business, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make the money. But that wasn’t who my grandmother was. I was eleven years old when she walked in one day and told my mom she’d sold the house. She said it was sucking all her time and energy, and she wanted to get out of here, travel, spend the rest of her years enjoying herself.
“I didn’t move here to run the plantation and I can’t just hand over my half of the inheritance. Why would Nina have willed it to me if that’s what she intended? I moved here hoping to be able to buy the house for my mother. I still remember her crying when my grandmother sold the house. She cried all day. She cried again when we packed our things, but I remember, she always smiled at your nan because she didn’t want her to feel guilty. It wasn’t her fault.”
So the house had been taken from June at the age of thirty-four when all she wanted was to raise David the way Leah wanted to raise Sadie. It really was the same. She rubbed her eyes in frustration.
“Nina told me never to have regrets,” David said. “And if I let go of this house, I will regret letting an opportunity to give it back to my family slip through my fingers.”
Leah couldn’t deny that, and the irritation that caused was driving her crazy. After all, though, it had been Lydia’s choice to sell it, right? “If the business was so successful, why did Lydia want to sell it to Nan? Couldn’t she just let Nan run it and go travel like she wanted to?”
David shook his head. “My grandmother was struggling to keep it all running smoothly due to its success. She wasn’t great with the business side of things so she offered to have your nan move in and run it for her. When Nina arrived, she whipped everything into shape, and that’s when it really took off. My grandmother, thrilled to have enough to satisfy her free spirit, started spending too much. She began taking lavish trips, and buying extravagant things. My mother begged her to tone it down, but pretty soon, she didn’t have enough money to pay for the house. And you know the rest.”
Leah nodded. Nan had saved every penny she’d earned, and was happy to do the legwork, applying for historical grants and business loans and running fundraisers in the name of supporting local history.
“Wow,” Leah said. She took a sip of her coffee. Even though her guard was still up, she felt like she understood David a little better now. “I do remember Lydia, just a little bit. I remember her smile. She had this wild, long hair, but she pulled it up into a loose bun, wisps falling down around her face. She would sing all the time.”
“Oh yeah,” he said with a smile as the memory surfaced for him. “She used to write her own lullabies and sing them to me at night. See, she was creative, artistic; she saw the house’s potential and once it was at its best, she was bored again. She was always chasing something to settle that creative urge.”
Leah sat silently, all of this setting in. It made her feel less angry, but more hopeless. She could see now why Nan would have wanted him to have a share in it. Maybe Nan hadn’t anticipated the trouble it would cause; she might not have known David’s plans, and Leah had never been open with Nan about the state of her own finances. She took another sip of coffee.
Leah had more to say. She wasn’t ready to leave the conversation—not by a long shot. She set her mug down and turned toward David as he leaned back on his chair. “Think about your story, David. I’m just like your mother the day your grandmother told her she’d sold the house. This is the only place I’ve ever called home. I have the chance to make a living doing what I love while also providing the best life for Sadie. The only way I can afford to do that is to open the house back up. I’m a single mother, and I’ve worked in a florist’s for the last five years, paying college fees on top of everything. You think I have the money to maintain this house if I don’t run the business here? I’ve been studying for years to prepare for this. Nan and I had it all planned out. I even had a move-in day. June twenty-first.
“I want to meet interesting people, hear their stories, put pictures of them up in the hallway like Nan always did. Even years later both she and I could recall personal stories about the people on that wall. To me, that was real education—meeting all those people, sharing the home’s history. I want that for me and my daughter.”
David sat quietly, his breathing steady, his face revealing his own frustration. “What are we going to do?” he asked quietly.
“I have no idea.” She looked up at him and tears swelled in her eyes, one escaping down her cheek. She wiped it away. The way he was looking at her startled her enough to pull her out of her sadness. It reminded her of a time when a big storm had passed through when they were kids—the sky was pitch black and the power had gone out. Everyone was asleep but Leah, and she was too scared to leave her room, hidden under her covers. David came in with a flashlight and crawled under them with her. He dumped a handful of butterscotch candies on the bed between them. They sat under the covers together, their heads pushing the sheets up like a tent. He read her books and they ate the candy. Ever since that day, the taste of butterscotch reminded her of that night. Every time the thunder clapped, he’d look at her the same way he was looking at her now, concern in those big eyes.
“I acted insensitively. I should’ve found out how you felt before I suggested buying your half. I apologize. We’ll figure something out.”
She looked down at her half-eaten pancake, lying cold on Nan’s floral-patterned plate. Nan was all around her—everywhere she looked—yet she felt at the same time like she was nowhere near. Leah needed her grandmother. She needed her guidance. Nan had always told her how to handle the big stuff that came her way, but now she wasn’t here, and Leah felt lost.
Neither of them talked, and she swam around in her thoughts about the situation, coming to the conclusion that they were completely at odds. There was no solution.
Chapter 5
Sadie, Jo, and Ethan were in the front car of the children’s Christmas train at the outdoor mall, while Louise, Roz, and Leah were piled into the car behind them, a man dressed up as one of Santa’s elves driving the large red-and-green locomotive. Leah rubbed her mittens together to try to get feeling back into her icy fingers. The whistle blew to alert passengers that the ride was about to begin.
Every year, The Girls brought their kids to this mall. They would have hot chocolate, ride the train, and take advantage of the before-Christmas deals that some of the shops offered. They hadn’t planned to come today, but Leah had called them the minute she’d gotten home, desperate to talk to Roz and Louise about her predicament. She hoped they’d have some kind of suggestion for her.
The train lurched forward, the sound of Christmas music filling the air. Roz steadied herself as the car rocked, shifting the carrier bags by their feet.
“So, tell us,” Roz said. “What did he say?”
“David wants me to sell him the plantation.” She still couldn’t believe the words as they came out of her mouth.
Louise’s face was serious, pouting as she shook her head in disapproval.
The kids all laughed at something but Leah barely noticed, waiting for what Roz was about to say. She knew her friend would tell it to her straight.
“And what are you go
ing to do?” Roz asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do! You’re going to refuse to give it to him.” Roz leaned forward, the train taking a turn around the cascading outdoor fountain. Two kids were standing there, throwing coins into it. “You can’t give up that easily.”
“She’s right,” Louise agreed.
Leah held on to the frame between the two open-air windows to steady herself, her other hand holding the handle of her shopping bag. “So what do I do?”
“Move in there,” Roz said, her voice direct, as if it were a command. “Dig your heels in. Don’t let him make a move. Eventually, he’ll get tired of hanging around in the house with you, and if he knows you aren’t going anywhere, maybe he’ll let his half go.”
She nodded, more to calm Roz than to agree completely. She was still mulling over what to do. Sadie laughed in the car in front of them again, tipping her head back, a giant smile on her face, and Leah decided to push her thoughts about the house away for now. She wasn’t going to solve it today, and this was their yearly tradition. She wanted to just have fun. Roz seemed to sense her change in direction because she smiled at her.
Leah leaned into the kids’ car through the open window between them, her eyes darting back to The Girls to let them know something was up. “Why don’t we all go to the chocolate shop next?” she asked as the train headed toward the stopping point. The kids cheered above the jingling Christmas music and the chugging of the engine. Leah laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”