“Yesterday.”
Tea bags. Sugar. Milk. Or did he prefer lemon? Did he even like tea? Johanna’s brain whirred. He was so near, so dear, so damned irresistible. And soccer-club meeting or not, why the hell didn’t Emma answer her phone?
“Johanna.” He leaned elbows to the counter. “Jo?”
She stopped fiddling and looked at him.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“What’s fine?”
“I didn’t come here expecting anything more than digging into your grandmother’s old bank statements and maybe some dinner.”
The teakettle whistled. Johanna took it off the heat, grimacing. “I’m that obvious?”
“I’m not used to seeing you flustered.” He came to her side of the counter, took her hands and kissed first one, then the other. Charlie looked at them a long time before meeting her eyes. “It’s good to know I have that effect on you.”
“You have no idea.”
He laughed softly. “I think I might. Look, Jo. I know everything changed after New Year’s Eve—”
“It didn’t change,” she said. “It’s just…”
“I know what it’s just. Reality’s a bitch, Jo, but you keep letting it spin you rather than you spinning it.” He laughed softly. “Wild Johanna Coco. Who would have ever thought you could be so cautious?”
Cautious?
Of all the adjectives in the English language, caution was never one in her own lexicon. She was one of the wild Coco girls. Wildest of them all, by popular account. She’d gone skydiving for her thirtieth birthday, for heaven’s sake. And there was the whole living in Brooklyn, Boston, even Austin, Texas, for a little while, travelling all over Europe in between moves with only a backpack and enough money for a plane ticket home.
She opened her mouth to tell him he was mistaken, but Charlie kissed her and the words caught in her throat. Her body relaxed even as the desire intensified. Johanna trembled with wanting, and still she felt the fight or flight reflex battling to be obeyed.
Charlie’s hands drifted lazily from face to breasts to waist. He drew her closer, kissed her harder, and let her go.
“To be continued,” he said. “Where do you want to start looking for the checkbook?”
* * * *
Utensils. Flatware. Pens and pencils and sticky-notepads. The kitchen drawers were crammed full of stuff Johanna was close to certain no one used anymore. Thumbtacks. Old batteries. Razor blades in their paper and cardboard shrouds that never saved anyone from being sliced. She found a calculator they’d gotten free when Gram took them to buy notebooks Johanna’s senior year in high school, still in the package. Pulling out the dish towels for the third time, Johanna’s hand landed on something squished up and halfway caught in the back of the drawer. Not hidden, just haphazard. Gram’s checkbook.
“Charlie, look.” She held it up. He abandoned the plastic bin of old paint sample cards and receipts he’d been going through and scrambled to his feet.
“Open it.”
“I’m…kind of scared.”
“Of what? Being rich?”
She laughed. “Well, if you put it that way…” Johanna opened the checkbook, scanned the register and the numbers there. “Holy shit.”
“What?”
She handed him the register, pointed to the last balance.
“Holy shit.”
“How does a sweet old lady in Bitterly, Connecticut hide that kind of cash?”
“By not keeping it in Bitterly.” Charlie showed her the checks. “The account was opened in Danbury. That’s a lot of money to keep in a checking account.”
“Where else is she going to keep it?”
“Stocks? Bonds? Some kind of mutual fund? I don’t know. There has to be an accountant involved somewhere.”
“Knowing Gram, she just put it all in a checking account and let it go at that.”
“That does sound like Addie.” Charlie blew out a deep breath, thumbed through the register. “This account doesn’t look like it was used much. See that? First page of the register goes all the way back to 1999.”
Johanna took the checkbook back. “You’re right. The most recent entries are…”
November 14, 2013. $549. Memo: water heater.
September 12, 2013. $316. Memo: trees…
All the hair on Johanna’s body stood on end. Her cheeks burned. Farther back, a few entries for odd amounts, random purchases, as if Gram only used the account to keep it active. Until March, 2005.
March 15, 2005. $4,265. WML.
February 15, 2005. $4,265 WML
“Charlie?”
January, December, November. 2005, 2004…03…02…all the way back to the very first entry in the register. The amount lowered as it went back in time. $3,565. $3,065. $2,765. There were other checks in between, written for other amounts, but in the memo, it was always the same: WML.
“This isn’t the checkbook Julietta was talking about,” she said. “What is WML?”
“We might be able to call the bank.” He looked at his watch. “Well, tomorrow.”
“Would it say on a bank statement, or…the canceled checks.”
“Johanna, hang on!”
But she could not wait. She flew down the basement steps. Something was building, like a wave or an explosion. WML. Payments, the same day every month, like rent. Whose rent would Gram and Pop be paying? For who else but Carolina?
She found the boxes of canceled checks she and her sisters had put in the throw-it-out pile. Charlie came more slowly down the steps. Johanna handed him several boxes.
“These aren’t the same bank account,” he said after checking each one. “These are from the bank in town.”
“How many bank accounts did they have?” She showed him the box in her hand. “This one is some bank out in Michigan.”
“Just look for checks from Danbury Savings.”
They sifted through boxes. The dust made Johanna’s eyes itch and her nose stuff up.
“Here it is.” Charlie motioned her closer. He showed Johanna the check on top. It was old. Older than the checkbook and register she’d found in the drawer.
“1992,” she said. “Look, Charlie. It’s made out to the Cully Mountain Convalescent Facility. $698. This must be for my mom’s rent. Is it called rent?”
“I have no idea. Here.” He handed her another box. “This one is more recent. Check it.”
The canceled check on top was dated January 15, 2001. It was made out to Wolf Moon Lodge, in the amount of $1,985. Johanna’s breath caught.
“WML,” she said. “Wolf Moon Lodge. This is it.” She sifted through them, went back in time. 2001. 2000. 1999. 1998. Every month on the fifteenth, another check to Wolf Moon Lodge, until—
June 26, 1997. A check for $885, made out to Cully Mountain.
“It must have changed names,” Johanna said aloud. “She was there. All along. So many years. For all I know, she’s there still. Oh, Charlie.”
Johanna buried her face into his chest, oblivious to the dust in his clothes. He held her close, rocked her gently. In the darkness behind her lids, she saw her mother. Alone. Lonely. Wondering why her daughters never came to see her. Had she thought them dead, as they all suspected she was?
“Why didn’t they ever tell us?” she choked. Why didn’t we ever ask?
“I wish I knew.” He put her from him, bent to her level. “I think we have enough for now. Let’s go upstairs and get on-line, see if Wolf Moon Lodge still exists.”
* * * *
Vanished. Dead. Erased. Happy. Stories told. Wishes made. All the same wish. And separate. Not the kind that sparkles up from a well for the price of a penny, or one granted by stars and birthday candles. This requires a different kind of magic. The rarest kind. It needs hope and love and sacrifice. Like Tinkerbelle, it needs belief. It demands truth, that hardest of things, that cannot remain buried forever, only long enough.
Chapter 12
>
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Johanna called Nina first.
“I found Mom,” she said, and the rest spilled out. Next she called Emma, and, thank goodness, reached her. The three of them went to the hospital the following afternoon and, after consulting with Dr. Sam, told Julietta what they knew.
“Is she still there?” Julietta asked.
“We didn’t call,” Johanna answered. “We thought it would be best to find out together. But Charlie looked the place up. It still exists as a well-respected facility.”
“It is,” Dr. Sam agreed. “I wondered if Wolf Moon Lodge was the place you were looking for when Julietta told me Cully Mountain was in Killian. I was going to call, see what I could discover. You beat me to it.”
“I would wonder where Gram and Poppy got the money to keep her there so long,” Nina said, “but I guess I don’t have to.”
“There’s more money left than there should be,” Emma said. “Either they invested well or got an infusion of cash from someplace else, but even a million and a half doesn’t last that long when you’re keeping your daughter in a long-term care facility and raising her four girls.”
“Willa Germaine, the lawyer in Danbury, said she would look into the banking stuff for us,” Johanna said. “Right now, the most important thing is getting to Killian. She was so nice on the phone. She actually remembered all of us from the adopt—”
“Johanna.” Nina halted her with a light touch to her arm. Johanna’s cheeks instantly warmed. They were all looking at her. She could feel it without looking, but she did. One at a time. Nina and Emma wore the same incredulous expression. Julietta, of course, smiled.
“You can’t possibly mean for us to drive all the way up there,” Nina began, “and face whatever it is we must face without warning.”
“Let’s do it,” Julietta said. “Today. Tomorrow. Before we chicken out.”
“There’s no chickening out of something we never agreed to do in the first place.” Emma shook her head. “I won’t be shamed into this.”
“Just hear me out, will you?” Johanna waited for them to quiet. “Worst case scenario, we call and find out she’s not there, that she died, that she’s lost in the system. We’re still going to go up there because that’s where she was. Maybe we’ll never see her again, but we can see where she lived. We can ask staff what she was like. Or maybe, maybe she’s still there. If she is, she might not know who we are, or she might weep with joy to see us again. Whatever the scenario, finding out beforehand isn’t going to make it easier. Isn’t it better to drive up there with hope?”
“You’ve not taken one thing into account,” Emma said. They all waited. “Maybe there’s no hope, Jo. Either she’s dead, vanished, or erased, just like the women in Gram’s stories about the locket.”
“What about the happy one?”
“If it were a possibility, she wouldn’t be in Wolf Moon Lodge in Killian, New Hampshire,” Nina put in. “I’m with Emma. Let’s call first.”
“That’s your decision,” Johanna said. “But I don’t want to know what they say. I’m going up.”
“I’m going with you,” Julietta said. “As long as Dr. Sam says I can leave the hospital.”
“Your release papers are already signed and dated,” he said. “But I must caution you on taking unnecessary risks.”
“See?” Emma gestured to the doctor. “He agrees. This is a dumb idea.”
“I did not say that, Mrs. Chambers.” Dr. Sam held up a finger. “I said no unnecessary risks, but if Julietta goes to Killian understanding what she might find there, I see no risk. In fact, I think discovering what happened to your mother after the accident is a very good thing. A healing one. For all of you.”
“We will have each other,” Johanna pressed. “The truth can’t hurt us. Only pretending it’s not there can. And if any of us has a problem—”
“She means me,” Julietta interjected.
“Fine, if Julietta has an issue of any kind, we’ll be in a place able to deal with it.”
“That’s true.” Nina chewed at her lips. “I don’t know. Emma?”
Emma fidgeted, her gaze darting from face to face. Of all her sisters, she was the one Johanna was least close to. Though they looked most alike, they were furthest apart in personality. Caution to Johanna’s wild, Emma had always played it safe.
Who would have ever thought you’d be so cautious?
Charlie’s words came back to hit her, suddenly and pitilessly, square between the eyes. Johanna’s whole body flushed. All the travel, all the moving, all the floating through life, through relationships. Even the bakery. Johanna skimmed the edges of life with a caution she had never recognized for itself, hiding it behind a shield called wild. Wild Johanna Coco would take any dare, run any risk whether financial or physical, but she had run away from Charlie when she was just a girl and had not risked her heart again. She distanced herself from the sisters and grandmother she loved, never even asked about the mother who disappeared not once but twice, or the father who died protecting his baby girl…
“Emma.” Nina moved closer to her sister. “We’re all scared.”
“What if I just don’t want to know?”
A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek. Another followed. Johanna felt her own eyes well, her throat start to close.
“Is that what you really want?”
“Yes. No. I just…I just want this not to be.”
“But it is,” Nina said. “Listen, little sister. Come with us. We’ll make it the road trip we never took during our college years. If you don’t want to go in, you don’t have to. Just come with us. No pressure. I swear to you.”
Emma put her head in her hands and cried. Nina was first to take her into her arms. Julietta and Johanna huddled around them, a knot of sisters, sorrow and tears. Dr. Sam’s chair scraped along the floor. Then he was gone. Johanna could almost feel a shift in the air with his leaving, the sort of cool drifting in from an open window in January. The chill crept up her back. She held her sisters tighter and the chill became warmth easing through her blood. The sorrow ebbed, making way for something more. Something better. Johanna could not quite define it, but it made her smile.
“All right,” Emma said when they broke apart. “I’ll come. But I’m not making any promises about getting out of the car.”
* * * *
The tense, four-hour car ride was only halfway over. Getting Julietta home, packing an overnight bag, and getting back into the car happened in less than twenty-four hours. Now, two hours closer to the answer they’d all been wishing a lifetime for, the anticipation was like ants under Johanna’s skin. When her phone rang, she hit her head on the car window, but answered it gratefully.
“Hello? This is Johanna.”
“Hello, Johanna. This is Willa Germaine. I have some news that might come as a bit of a shock.”
“Who is it?” Emma whispered. Johanna mouthed, attorney, and put a finger to her lips.
“Well, I’m sitting. What do you have for me?”
“Good news. I found out where the money came from…”
Five minutes later, Johanna tapped out of the phone call. Her sisters waited silently. Even after shaking her head clear, it took another few seconds for her to find her voice.
“The account I found in the drawer,” she began, “was the one Gram and Pop used for Mom’s expenses. The account in town has a good amount in it, but nothing like the one in Danbury or Michigan. That one seems to have only been used for our college educations since it was opened in 1993.”
“What?”
“Where’d it come from?”
“Why did they never tell us?”
Her own questions coming out of their mouths had Johanna holding up her hands in surrender.
“Two words,” Johanna said, “Bruce Johnson.”
“Uncle Boo?” Emma asked.
Johanna nodded. “First there was the settlement apparen
tly awarded to Gram and Pop and put in the Danbury bank account back in the 1980s. Remember I told you Bruce Johnson was some kind of big deal in the computer world? Apparently, he had a lot of money stashed away. The Michigan account was set up in 1993 with money bequeathed to them for the sole purpose of taking care of our mother and us.”
“But…there were no trust funds set up?” Nina asked. “That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Attorney Germaine said the same thing. The civil court award went directly to Gram and Poppy. This she knows because her firm did the whole thing. The inheritance, she believes, must have gone directly to them, too, because otherwise there would have to be trusts. She’s going to look further into it.”
“So the one in town,” Nina said, “must have been what money they earned over the years. Social Security checks and that sort of thing. Smart old birds. No money, no gossip. I wonder why no one ever questioned how two elderly people on Social Security raised four girls and put them all through very expensive colleges.”
“We never asked,” Johanna reminded them.
“True.”
“As with all things, Gram had a reason for keeping her secrets,” Julietta said. “I always knew there was something going on behind that sassy smile.”
“Poppy, too,” Johanna added. “He must have been in on all of it.”
Julietta shifted in her seat. “He was, sure, but Gram called the shots. I always thought of Poppy as being quiet, and figured it was because he couldn’t hear very well. But finding out all this? Pop was sad. Really sad.”
Johanna got a flash of her grandfather’s face, of the always-smile on his lips. Sweet. Kind. Gentle. And sad. Yes, sad. How had she never noticed?
“Gram hid her secrets in the everyday,” Nina said. “We never questioned anything because we never had to. How did she do it? How did she live her life on top of all these secrets, and do it so well no one ever suspected a thing?”
“Now it’s all coming out,” Johanna said. “All her secrets unraveling bit by bit.”
Seeking Carolina (Bitterly Suite Book 1) Page 20