Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
FRANKIE
Now
The room tipped around Frankie. Uncle Ray was her father? The man who’d launched Estelle’s career, who’d organized their tours for years, who’d recommended Aspen Creek as a place to settle, who they’d celebrated holidays with.
Frankie pushed off the couch and paced the length of the room, her heart beating furiously. She spun back to face Amber, who was watching her reaction with wide eyes. “When you said that thing about his soul—you know he’s not dead, right?”
“Sure he is,” Amber said. “There was an obituary years ago.”
“No, there wasn’t.” Frankie ran a hand through her hair.
“Maybe it was his dad or someone else by that name, but the Raymond Clark who was Estelle’s manager is very much alive.
I call him…” The words stuck in her throat.
“I call him Uncle Ray. I’ve known him all my life.
His son Matt is one of my best friends.” She sucked in a breath. Oh dear God—Matt was her brother.
She sank down onto the floor, a lifetime of interactions with the man who’d broken Amber running a reel in her mind.
Amber’s face had paled as Frankie spoke. “She kept him in her life?” she asked. “She didn’t even believe me enough to be wary of him? She let him around you?” Her voice rose on the last syllable.
“He’s never hurt me,” Frankie hurried to assure her.
“But he could have.” The words were like flint and must have felt as such too because Amber brought a hand up to her throat as if needing help to swallow them down.
“Whatever it took, huh, Mom?” she sneered.
“That’s what she’d tell me every time she’d been home and had to leave again.
Now I know. Success was truly all that mattered. ”
“She was a fraud,” Frankie breathed, the pieces coming together. “She sent you off…”
“Actually, I think he arranged and paid for it. He was always going on about his network of contacts here. Better for them both to be rid of me. No one would ask questions, and she could keep taking his money without me there reminding her that she was aligned with the devil.”
That made sense. And Frankie had to assume Ray had known.
He’d always been generous with her for birthdays and holidays.
It was enough to make bile rise in her throat.
“So she sent you off, you had me, for some reason she decides to come get me and raise me as her own, but she lies about how old I am.”
“Wouldn’t that have been pretty obvious?” Amber asked.
“I don’t know—we were traveling. A six-month-old can be nine months. A one-year-old, eighteen months. A two-year-old almost three. If you’re never in the same place for long, no one is going to question stated fact. She always described me as small for my age and blamed the trauma.”
“Trauma?” Amber’s brow creased.
“Do you know the song that made her famous? ‘My Only Child’?”
“I’ve heard it, but I obviously wasn’t a fan.”
“She told everyone it was about me. That I’d been abducted and returned.
I’ve been speculating that she said it because it brought her more attention, but maybe it was also a vague explanation for whatever age-appropriate skills I may have lacked.
Greg could have only been my dad if I was born before he passed. ”
“She made you believe you’d been kidnapped?”
Frankie nodded.
“Holy hell…” Amber tossed the pillow she’d been holding away from her. “The gall of that woman. I swear I thought I was over her, but this brings everything back.”
Frankie got off the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“No. Do not apologize for her. None of this is your fault.”
“None of it is our fault,” Frankie amended.
Amber nodded. Then she got up and came over to hug Frankie again. “But you’re here now,” she said softly, running a hand over Frankie’s hair. “My firstborn.”
Frankie let out a small laugh. “I’ve gone from being an only child to having three half-siblings in a day.” But then her thoughts darkened. “I don’t know that Matt is going to believe me though. He’s close with his dad.”
In fact, if this came out, it could make for a bigger problem than just Matt.
Raymond had just as much sway in Aspen Creek as Estelle had had, if not more.
His development company was pouring money into the area, and he had friends in high places.
But it had to come out, didn’t it? There was a criminal in their midst.
“When do you have to go back?” Amber asked.
“I have the car until ten tomorrow morning.”
“Will you stay the night? We have a guest room, and I’d love for you to better meet everyone.”
Amber looked so hopeful that Frankie said yes on the spot.
She could put the messy turns of this story on hold for one night and let herself just be.
Spend time with family she’d never expected to find.
Tomorrow was inevitable, but it wasn’t here yet, and Frankie had a feeling she’d need to gather her strength before then.
Saying goodbye was harder than she’d thought.
After an evening of listening to her brother and sister talk about their schools and interests, of eating good food, and learning everything she could ever want to know about lavender processing, there was still so much unsaid between her and Amber.
“We’ll stay in touch,” her mother said, walking Frankie to her car early Sunday morning. “And if you ever need anything, I’m here.”
She’d made clear she didn’t expect Frankie to go after Raymond.
“I have a good life now,” she’d said. “I don’t want you to upend yours over me and a past that’s long gone. He’s old—he’ll die soon enough.”
But Frankie wasn’t sure. She needed to process and to talk to Owen. He’d give her his honest opinion—she was sure of it. So much was at stake.
“Oh, I forgot to show you the shop,” Amber said as they approached the building. “I’ve got to send you with a few gifts. Come on.”
They entered the small building, and Frankie was immediately engulfed in fragrant air that brought her back to Estelle’s guest room and snapped another piece of the puzzle in place.
“Did you say you wrote her ten years ago?” Frankie asked.
Amber handed her some pillow mist and a tub of bath soak. “Yes, about then. Why?”
“That would explain why the payments to the school stopped. She only sent money there because she didn’t know where you were. After you wrote her, she started buying products from you instead.”
“A more direct way to offer her thirty pieces of silver?” Amber asked. “Maybe.”
“Did you know she was ordering from you?” Frankie asked.
“I did.” Amber piled several lip balms and small lavender bags into Frankie’s arms. “But we’re a seasonal farm so it wasn’t like I was going to turn down her business.
Every sale matters.” She looked around the store as if to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
“I suppose you don’t need any candles or tea since Stella had that covered? ”
It was a good sign that after all the revelations they’d shared, they could still find levity in the situation.
“I’m happy to pay for it,” Frankie said, setting her stash down on the rough-hewn counter. “Now I know all the hard work that goes into this.”
“No, Frankie. You’re my daughter. This is as much yours as it is mine.”
Frankie’s cheeks flushed with elation at Amber’s words, another rift healing inside her.
Being Amber’s daughter was already different than being Estelle’s because it came without strings.
She’d never noticed how complex Estelle’s mothering of her had been until she’d experienced the ease of being in Amber’s presence.
It was true that she was an adult now and didn’t need the oversight she might once have required, but there was something else intangible at play too.
“Let me wrap everything up for you.” Amber reached behind the counter for tissue paper, and while she worked with nimble fingers, Frankie perused the cute displays and handmade signs that lined the shop.
Finally, her eyes came to rest upon a card stand next to her on the counter. She stared at it for a long moment before reaching for one of the prints. Familiar purple fields beneath a sunset sky. “It was you,” she said. “You sent the card to her funeral.”
“You saw that?” Amber asked, using a sticker with the farm’s logo to keep the tissue paper in place.
“It’s what set everything in motion,” Frankie said. “Without it, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
Amber paused what she was doing, placing her hand over Frankie’s. “Then the sentiment served a purpose.”
“Did you mean it?” Frankie asked. “Have you forgiven her?”
Amber withdrew her hand and proceeded to place all the small parcels into a paper bag. “Yes, I forgave her for what she did to me.” She handed Frankie the bag. “But now it’s going to take just as long to forgive her for what she’s done to you.”
“A few lies hardly compare,” Frankie said.
Amber came out from behind the counter. “But it’s not just lies, is it?
It sounds like you did everything together—like you were always presented with curated choices that suited Stella’s plans.
I’m not saying that’s necessarily bad, or that they might not also have been your plans, but I wonder—would you have stayed if you’d known? ”
The question lingered as Frankie drove away, her real mother growing smaller and smaller in the rearview until a turn in the road hid her behind a towering hedge.
Her life hadn’t been bad, and she certainly hadn’t suffered any traumas that came close to what Amber had been through.
Yes, she’d had some heartbreak and regrets, and she was still single at thirty-six…
No, thirty-four, she corrected. That was going to take some getting used to.
But aside from the lies, Frankie still struggled to see herself as a victim of any real injustice, and yet Amber’s voice had burned with vehemence when she announced the withdrawal of her forgiveness.
Wrongs needed to be righted, there was no doubt about it, but throughout the drive back to Guildford, the train ride to London, the last night at the hotel, and the hours on a plane far above the Atlantic, no clear answer materialized.
Estelle had been a liar and a con artist, and she’d aided the worst kind of monster.
Raymond had got off scot-free for something that should have landed him in prison.
Both of them were part of the very fabric of Aspen Creek.
If she told, would the town believe her when she wasn’t even sure Matt and Kayla would?
She could come off as unhinged, could face charges for libel.
She could lose her whole community. And what would that do to Starview?
Aspen Creek needed the school and the reputation it carried, but whether people believed her about Estelle, or they thought she was telling tall tales, Starview would be disgraced either way.
Everything is fine, Estelle whispered at her shoulder as the plane touched down in Charlotte late Monday afternoon.
And as Frankie looked out at the familiar blue sky above the tarmac, the leafy green tree line in the distance, and heard the pilot welcome her home, she wanted to believe it.
Maybe the show could go on for a little while longer.
The auction was five days away, and everyone from students and teachers to vendors and parent volunteers had worked so hard to make this event happen.
Afterward, she’d make this right. She’d confront Raymond, she’d do another interview, she’d force justice for Amber somehow, she’d… she’d…
But as soon as she spotted Owen in the pick-up lane, she burst into tears, the idea of keeping things to herself going up in smoke. She hadn’t told him anything over text beyond saying she’d found her sister, and the delay in sharing the truth weighed more heavily on her than she’d anticipated.
Owen jumped out of the car and pulled her into his arms despite the lane attendant yelling at him.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly, one hand stroking her back.
“I’ve got you. Here, let me take your bag.
” He guided her into the passenger seat and put her things in the trunk, then pulled away from the curb.
“I can stop somewhere, let you catch your breath,” he said, glancing her way as she wiped her cheeks.
“Did something happen, or are you just glad to see me?”
Despite everything, that coaxed a smile from her.
“I am glad to see you,” she said, meaning it.
“But yeah, everything is messed up.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
No, things were not fine, and she wasn’t Estelle—no amount of pretense was going to make it so.
The show ended here. “You don’t have to stop. I’ll just tell you.”
By the time they reached Aspen Creek, he knew everything.
“Estelle was your grandmother,” Owen said, his gaze resting solemn on Estelle’s front door as he let her story sink in. “You have another family. Matt Clark is your brother.” He made a hand gesture next to his head to indicate that his mind was blown.
“And Raymond is my…”
Owen turned to her with murder in his eyes. “Don’t say it. He’ll never be that. That pompous fucker.”
She nodded, looking down at her hands. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m supposed to celebrate Estelle in a few days, and she doesn’t deserve it, but if I don’t, Starview is done.”
“You can’t lie,” he said. “I know you.”
Their eyes met over the console, the short distance bridged by something indefinable that had grown deeper in her absence.
“But what if they don’t believe the truth,” she said. “I barely believe it myself.”
“Grams will, and she can be very convincing.”
“I have to tell Matt and Kayla before I tell anyone else.” Frankie’s palms grew damp at the thought.
“You think they’ll doubt you?”
“Would you believe something like this about your father?”
“It’s not difficult to prove.”
He made it sound so simple, and perhaps it was, but as Frankie crawled into her own bed that night, resting her head on a pillow scented with a spray of her newfound mother’s crafting, apprehension still ruled supreme.
Because in the morning, she wasn’t just telling her friends the truth about her parentage; she was doing to Matt what Estelle’s death had done to her—dismantling everything he’d held as true about his life until this point and rearranging it into a pattern he’d never asked for.