37. Jess
Jess headed into Silas’s office and waited for Everett to follow.
She had never spent much time in this room. It was where Silas had made the decisions, and the money. She always had a sense that the gentle side of himself he showed to her disappeared when he was in here. Even with him gone, a certain power still clung to the built-in shelves and the big mahogany desk.
“Go on,” Everett said, gesturing to Silas’s desk. “Sit.”
Everett took a seat with his back to the door, leaving Silas’s big chair behind the desk to her. Jess sat, expecting to feel like a child with her legs swinging. But she was surprised to find that chair suited her perfectly.
For better or worse, she was the captain of their little ship now. And she thought maybe that suited her just fine.
“I know you’re going through a lot right now,” Everett told her. “And I’m here to make everything as easy for you as possible.”
“You have plenty going on in your own life, Everett,” Jess told him, thinking of Justine and the baby. “And plenty of work on top of it. You don’t have to help me too.”
“This is work,” he told her. “Or, I should say, it’s also work. I’d be here for you regardless, Jess. But Silas hired me to look after things when he passed and to make sure you had everything you needed.”
“What does that mean?” Jess asked guardedly, unable to put a finger on why his statement had her hackles up.
“Oh, Jess,” Everett said quickly. “No, no. Silas isn’t trying to run your life from beyond the grave or anything like that. And I’m not here to tell you what to do. You’ll be the one to tell me what it is that you want, and I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen smoothly for you.”
Jess nodded slowly, realizing that what he had just dismissed was exactly what she had been instinctively repulsed by. But it was an odd feeling, because she had always been open to letting Silas call the shots before.
“For example,” Everett went on, “the house is yours to keep, as you know. If you’d like, I can coordinate having all your things and the girls’ shipped up from Florida, and arrange a house sitter for the place down there until you sell.”
What he said made perfect sense, and it was probably a very good idea.
But it felt all wrong.
Suddenly, Jess wanted nothing more than to be left alone with her thoughts for a while.
“I’ll think about it, Everett,” she said as she stood.
“Of course, Jess,” he said, hopping to his feet as well. “Whatever you decide, just let me know and I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
If he was surprised or offended that she was cutting things short, he wasn’t showing it.
“That will be fine,” she said.
“I’m also the executor of my brother’s estate,” he told her. “We can have a formal will reading tonight, if you want, but there’s really no need. Obviously, everything is yours now.”
“Obviously,” she echoed, not having really given the matter much thought.
“It’s pretty cut and dried on your end, Jess,” Everett said. “But there’s still a lot to untangle before we can move forward. His recent medical bills have to be tallied and dealt with, and there are estate taxes to be paid. I’ll be handling the paperwork side of it. The medical bills are pretty significant, but you’re fine for living expenses for right now. Just don’t plan any major investments until I let you know it’s all sorted out and we can go over exactly what you’ve got left.”
“Of course,” Jess said, nodding.
The idea of it was almost too much. The last time she was in this house, she’d been worrying about how to land a minimum wage job so she could make what was in the account Silas had left her stretch for as long as possible. Now she was being warned to wait a little while before making major investments.
But she also knew firsthand that medical bills had a way of adding up so fast that she might just find herself right back where she started. And while it was true that the house was hers now, plenty of people had been forced to sell to pay for medical care. She could only hope it didn’t come to that.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Everett asked.
“Not really,” Jess said. “I’m going to go check on the girls now.”
“Of course,” Everett said, stepping aside.
His eyes told her that there was something more he wanted to say.
But Jess was already feeling overloaded. She headed out of the room without making eye contact, taking the back hall so she could cut around the outside of the house and get back to her friends without having to accept any more false outpourings of sympathy.
It was hard not to notice Renée Adams arguing with her flunkies in the cloak room on her way past. But honestly, if Glory didn’t care about that crowd anymore, neither did Jess.
She opened the back door and stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her. The June afternoon was warm and sunny, and a light breeze swayed the black-eyed Susans and the last of the daisies and daffodils by the house. The big magnolia must have just blossomed, and the flowers were exquisite.
Jess gazed up at the beautiful tree for a few minutes, enjoying the sight she had celebrated with such joy every year for the last three decades. But this time, she couldn’t help noticing that her view ended at the hedges in back. And instead of the sound of the ocean, she could only hear the hum of the traffic on Route 76 in the background.
Don’t be silly, Jess,she told herself. This is what you cried over every night starting the very day he left. This is what you thought would take part of your soul away if you had to leave it.
But it wasn’t just the house. She knew it was much more than that.
If she wanted to, Jess could have her whole life back right now—the status, the friends, all of it.
She had even regained the confidence she’d felt back when Silas was around. Jess had proven that she was perfectly capable of being the leader of her little family. She wouldn’t just be coming back victorious in other people’s eyes. She would be coming back victorious in her own eyes, too. Coming home.
Except somehow it didn’t feel that way anymore.
Jess closed her eyes for a moment, and when she pictured herself at home, she was standing on the porch of a very different house, where the sunlight took on a golden hue, the birds sang like their hearts were full, and the flowers bloomed all year long.