But it would be a lot easier to go through the records at my own pace in the comfort of my own home.
Francine printed out a receipt and handed it to me. As I took it, she put her hands around mine and smiled. Her watery blue eyes crinkled at the edges in a glorious smile that made my heart ache for her.
“Thank you, my dear, for keeping an old woman company. I know you could have asked to have a private room to do all this in. I enjoyed the conversation. I wish you and that hot young fiancé of yours all the best. Don’t let these years go to waste.”
I gave her a tight smile, my vision blurring slightly at the edges from the unshed tears. I scooped up the papers, turned and began to walk out, thinking about what it would be like to be that old without half of my heart. Half of my soul.
Would I still be kind and good to people if I was robbed of the one true love I had ever known? Could I still be a good person without Thomas?
Francine had been unfailingly kind to me and engaged me at every point she could. I hadn’t meant to talk about Thomas and our engagement but it seemed the nicest topic I could come up with and she seemed to enjoy it.
Especially when I described the way Thomas looked. Then again, who wouldn’t?
I stopped halfway through the door and marched back. My arms were starting to tire from holding the two-hundred-plus papers in their banker’s box Francine had let me have. I set my papers down on the counter near the window.
That caught Francine’s attention and she hurried back to the window. “Hello, what can I- Oh! Hello, again Claire. Forget something?”
“Yeah, I did.” I fished out a business card, flipped it to the back and jotted down my cell there along with my name. “I enjoyed talking to you so much that I figured, if you wanted to talk sometime you could call me. In fact, I would very much appreciate it if you did.” I slid the card through the large slot in the glass.
Francine’s bespectacled eyes teared up and she took it, putting a hand to her lips. “Oh, this is so sweet of you. I don’t know what to say.”
I hefted the box in my arms again. “Then think about it, and call me! You can say whatever you need to me then.” Before I could make it awkward - more awkward, really - I beat a hasty retreat, stuffed the box into the passenger seat of my hybrid and hurried back to town.
If I was lucky I could make it before Thomas started to worry. Just in case I shot him a text telling him I would be a little late and to start the family dinner without me while I was still in the parking lot.
Either he didn’t have his phone on him - a surprisingly common occurrence - or he was busy making food because he didn’t reply to me.
Now that we had proof that Beth was the actual owner - I doubted her family was too happy about her spending her trust on rundown old buildings - we could set up a plan of attack.
So long as Beth’s goal was to turn a profit, I could probably make a good case for paying above market value. Even whatever lofty price Beth was likely looking for seemed worth it.
In a few years, after development was done, Sunrise Valley properties would be worth several times their current price. And it was worth it just to get Beth out of the way once and for all.
I only hoped that it could be done. If Beth had the slightest hint that either Thomas or I were involved, it was over. She would fight us tooth and nail, and there was no way I could think of to get those properties away from her legally.
12
Thomas
The kitchen was in full swing when Jemma and Joanne let themselves in. After I had nearly burned a sauce answering the door, we had a spare key given to them for such occasions.
Jemma swept up behind me, took a big whiff of each pot and pan on the stove and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Smells fucking awesome, man.” She paused. “That was okay, right? I mean, now that you’re practically my brother I can kiss you and it’s not creepy or weird?”
Her mother came behind her, hands on her shoulders to guide her out of the kitchen and into the dining room. “Lovely to see you, Thomas.” Then to Jemma, “It is only weird or awkward if you bring attention to it. There was nothing strange about what you did though.”
She had a knack, despite not being involved in their lives much, for handling both Jemma and Claire. Granted, she was much better with Jemma than Claire. The two were still on fairly rocky ground but I knew they were trying. “Where’s Sam?” I asked.
Last I saw she had taken off an hour before closing. I had already dropped off the deposit at the bank and was well on my way through the butter sauce for the lobster when Jemma and Joanne showed up.
Which meant that Sam couldn’t be far behind. She only lived thirty feet away down the hall.
“She said she wanted to get a shower or something,” said Jemma, pilfering a buttered yeast roll and shoving it into her mouth. She leaned on the breakfast counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area. “Where’s that sister of mine?”
Not daring to look up from the sauce, I said, “She’ll be a little late. I got a text from her just a few minutes ago and haven’t been able to respond yet. She said to start without her.” I let that hang in the air a moment.
“Which…we will obviously…” Jemma trailed off, I risked a look over my shoulder at her. She was looking at her mom, then at me for some hint of what was right. It was sweet. I shook my head. “Not, be doing. We will wait for her!”
Joanne patted her on the back appreciatively, perhaps a bit more praise than was warranted but I couldn’t begrudge her the desire to celebrate even the littlest victories. She had missed a lot.
“Thank you, again Thomas,” said Joanne. “These are the highlight of my week, in between job searching and house hunting there isn’t much to do in town.”
“How’s that going?” I asked. Joanne had a bachelor’s in history from before she and Richard got married and I suggested she include that on her resume even if it didn’t seem like a fit. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to apply to the worst places to work.
Places that probably felt like more of a punishment than an actual job. I could relate. Feeling worthless didn’t exactly make you want to swing for the fences. Not when rejection was all but assured.
“Oh, not too bad.” Which was her usual reply. It meant she would prefer not to talk about it and the last thing I ever wanted was to create any sort of conflict during a family dinner night.
That would defeat the entire purpose.
The door swung open and slammed shut. I didn’t need to look up to know that it was Sam.
Despite myself, I felt a trickle of disappointment. I loved Sam like my own blood but I was secretly hoping Claire would make it in time for dinner.
It was hard enough juggling multiple dishes so that everything was ready at nearly the same time. There was an art to it.
I had no idea how I was going to keep everything warm.
“What’s up, butts?” asked Sam, giving me a smack on the back.
“Sometimes you make me miss when you used to call me ‘dingus’ all the time,” I answered.
“We don’t all get what we want, man. You of all people should know that.”
I shook my head and focused on lowering the heat, wondering how I could keep everything warm without drying it out, or burning some of the more delicate dishes.
“Jem, Jo,” said Sam by way of greeting. “Where’s Claire at?”
“She will be a little late,” said Joanne.
“Thought it was a little weird when I didn’t see her dinky little toy car. I have no idea how Thomas fits.”
“The short answer is: I don’t,” I said with a snort. “The long answer is that it takes a lot of squeezing and I need to put the seat all the way back so my knees aren’t inside my chest.”
“It’s not that bad,” said Jemma. I shot her a look over my shoulder. “Okay, maybe it is that bad. But it’s super cute looking.”
“Claire did offer to get you a new car,” I chimed in. She had. On multiple occasions. Even offered her Ric
hard’s Caprice, the car I was driving now.
“Yeah, well I’m a strong independent woman that makes her own way in the world.”
I could only shrug at that. I would be the last person on Earth to force somebody to accept a gift. I didn’t believe something like that was charity. It was family helping family. The thing all good families should do.
Not that I would have known from experience. My family was difficult, to say the least. Which was a very kind way of saying abusive.
“Is that so?” Sam’s voice had that smug air to it. “All by yourself, no help from friends or family?”
The apartment was silent all of a sudden aside from the soft bubbling of the sauce. I slid it off the heat and capped it with a lid, hoping it would stay warm long enough.
Jemma swallowed hard and looked around the room like a frightened animal. I was watching this all from over my shoulder, absently lidding and shifting around pans and pots where I could to cover them or stack them in a way to keep them warm.
“Well, mostly, okay?” was her reply. She crossed her arms just like Claire did when she got embarrassed or self-conscious. She rubbed her left arm. “Maybe it’s okay to get some help sometimes.”
“Like when?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.
“Just, I dunno. Sometimes.”
Jemma was about the most stubborn person I knew. She absolutely refused to take any kind of help unless she thought it was her own idea.
The only reason she wasn’t living at her deadbeat boyfriend’s place a few hours out of the valley was because Claire had effectively tricked her into thinking Jemma was doing Claire a favor by taking the next-door apartment.
I’m still not sure how she managed that level of subtle manipulation. Not sure I’d ever fully understand, come to think of it.
“It sure is,” said Sam. Her soft blue eyes were alight with mischief, her smile split her face like a cat that backed a particularly juicy morsel into the corner. “Sometimes, like when you’re looking for… say a job?”
Jemma’s face went beet-red. I turned fully to face the group assembled in the dining room. “Jemma, what is Sam talking about?”
She stared at the floor, practically stomped her feet like a child and shouted. “I applied for the opening you’ve got at the bakery!”
Joanne gasped and flung her arms around her daughter, squeezing her to her chest. “Oh, sweetie! Why do you have to act like that’s such a bad thing?”
The youngest Walker sister’s reply was muffled by her mother’s large green sweater. A gift from Claire that she kept in immaculate condition despite wearing it all the time.
“What was that?” asked Sam, putting a cupped hand to her ear.
“Thomas probably won’t even hire me,” muttered Jemma.
“Why do you think that?” I came into the dining room proper. Jemma avoided my gaze. She muttered something again. Joanne moved aside but kept one arm around her daughter’s shoulders.
“What?” Sam and I said at the same time.
“Because I have no references and you probably want like, trained people and stuff.” Jemma scuffed her shoe on the floor. What was she, twelve?
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Then I rounded on Sam. “Why didn’t you say something to me when you saw her application? You shouldn’t have hidden that from me, Sam. Even if you wanted to see Jemma twist in the wind for always spurning any help. That’s not right.”
Somehow, and I do not know how, both women looked chastened. Their eyes glued to the floor. Joanne gave me an appraising look and a nod of approval.
Since when did I get Dad powers?
I looked at both of them in shock, Sam was the first to respond. She looked at Jemma, her lips quirked to the side like they usually did when she was wrestling with something particularly troubling.
“Look Jemma, I’m sorry. I was just giving you a hard time because you make such a big fucking deal about not accepting any help even when it would be good for you.
“Like you’re on some moral high horse that somehow is worth the life you live as long as you get to pretend that it’s your choice. And it hurts seeing you so unhappy and unfulfilled in your daily life. I was only giving you shit for it because I care for you and of course, I would have made sure you got hired.”
Jemma’s vision roamed the dining room. “I guess maybe I do that sometimes…because y’know.”
“No, I do not know,” I said. I really did not understand. I got not wanting to ask for help out of pride but Jemma went out of her way to do it. And if what Sam said was true, she was not at all happy. I had hoped that would change when she moved here.
While Jemma talked I took a seat at the table, one by one everybody else did too. “I mean it’s just, you know.” She took a roll from the basket on the table and started tearing it up into little fluffy bits and nibbling on them. “Ugh, it’s so hard to explain.”
I gave her a warm smile. “Try me.”
“So, like you ever try really hard at something and fail?”
“Of course.” What kind of question was that? “Who hasn’t?”
“But like, you put everything you had into it. You really, truly cared and you put all you had into the effort and still failed.”
That was a little specific but I nodded along all the same. “Yeah. I don’t believe in doing things half-assed.”
Sam nudged Jemma next to her. “He prefers to whole-ass it.”
“Well,” Jemma began, staring at the torn-up roll in her hands. “Doesn’t it like… hurt a lot when you gave it everything you got and it wasn’t good enough? How do you go on?”
Now I understood.
It was like a light went off in my head and illuminated a dark corner I had forgotten about. All of a sudden I understood what she meant, what she was going through.
At one point or another, I think it affects all of us. She was scared of failure. So scared to fail, that she actively sabotaged herself so she could spin the story that she didn’t want a handout.
Couldn’t get into art school? She didn’t want the handout of a scholarship or grant. Can’t afford her own place? Crash at her boyfriend’s place rather than accept help from family.
I guessed living with a sister like Claire, the sort of person who actively leaped at every challenge and tackled it gladly - all while making it look effortless - was a tall order to match.
No wonder Jemma put on an air of not trying. Of not even wanting to try. It was the only defense she had against attempting to be like Claire and potentially failing.
“You dust yourself off,” I said. “Take stock of what you did and try again with a different approach. Fail, learn, try again. You only truly fail if you never get back up. And until the day you die, you have the chance to succeed. So it’s never truly over and you never completely fail.”
It took Jemma a moment to digest the words, she turned them over in her head for a little while. It felt strangely naked. I had never seen this part of Jemma before.
I had nearly forgotten that Sam and Joanne were there, silently lending their support to Jemma. I know if Claire was here she’d have some weighty words to throw around. Something kind and gentle to say to get to Jemma with a lesson neatly tucked in.
Unfortunately, I was not Claire. I lacked her charm and the subtle way she used her words to make people relaxed and at ease.
“Listen Jemma, if you don’t want to try that’s your call and you are the only one who can make it. But if you’re afraid to fail because you think you’ll look stupid or won’t compare to somebody else, then you need to have a look around you.”
Her brow crinkled and she scrunched up her nose in a similar way that Claire did when she was borderline offended. “What do you mean?”
I motioned to Sam. “Sam tries all the time. I mean, she actively fucks things up to give me a heart attack sometimes but she tries. She chases her dreams and when she fails she picks herself back up and tries again.”
A sweep of my arm towards Joanne.
“Your mother could tell you better than most what it’s like to give it your all and fail. What that can do to you if you don’t get back up again. Now look at her. She’s clean, and back in your life. Imagine how things would be if she had never tried? If she did not put every ounce of her being into getting better, turning her life around, and coming to find you?”
Joanne nodded, her hands around a hot mug of tea I hadn’t seen her grab. “I could have said that it wouldn’t work out. Taken the first lash of anger from either you or Claire as a sign I should quit and leave. But I wanted to be back in your lives so badly I couldn’t let it go at that - and goodness knows I wanted to turn tail and run. If I have that strength…” She reached out and laid her hand on top of Jemma’s. “Then so do you, sweetheart.”
A few shimmering tears squeezed free from Jemma’s eyes and she ducked her head. They splashed onto the wooden table, sparkling jewels of sadness that broke my heart. “You are always welcome,” I said. “In our home, in the bakery, anywhere. You’re family, Jemma.”
She nodded, scrubbed her sleeve across her face and lifted her gaze to look at me. Her eyes were a darker shade than Claire’s but still beautiful in their own right. They shimmered with the remainder of her tears. “Thank you, Thomas. Could I… work at the bakery?”
Instead of answering I got up and walked to her side of the table. I bent over and wrapped my arms around her in a hug. “Of course. You want Sam’s job too?”
Sam nearly bounced out of her seat. “Hey!”
13
Claire
The scene I walked in on was a strange one.
Thomas was hunched over Jemma’s small frame, enveloping her in a hug. If I was being honest, I got a little jealous. Not that I ever thought there was anything serious going on between them but I could sure use one of those hugs right now.
Sam was on her feet shouting something that I didn’t quite catch as I shut the door behind me. Nobody even noticed me come in they were so preoccupied.
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