Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Current Day
Rita sat with her back to the wall, waiting. The clock above her line of vision ticked slowly. It seemed slow anyway. Slower than usual. It was funny how that worked. When you had nothing to do but wait, clocks always ticked more slowly.
The cafe was almost entirely empty. There was one woman in the back, working on a laptop and her third cappuccino. It was the after-lunch lull before the evening crowd came rushing back in on their way home from work.
Ever since her visit to the hospital, she hadn’t felt well. It might have all been in her mind, but finding out that she had oesophageal cancer wasn’t exactly the highlight of her fifty-eight years of living. They’d done a PET scan and hadn’t found any other cancer in her body, so the oncologist was hopeful. Surgery should do the trick—that plus radiation and she’d likely make a full recovery.
How likely? Rita had asked.
The oncologist’s smile had drooped a little then. “Fifty-fifty.”
So … not very likely. Not really. She’d tapped her fingers on the desk in a slow rhythm, taking it all in. She might die. Not only might she die, but there was a fifty-fifty chance she would. And when she read up about it later, the chance of death increased after five years.
Yippee!
Something to look forward to.
Just then, Julie pushed through the doorway. She had a satchel slung across her body. Her thick brown hair hung long, almost to her waist and parted in the middle. She wore glasses and her brown eyes searched the cafe until they rested on Rita’s face. Then she grinned, revealing white teeth, slightly prominent in the front.
Rita stood to embrace her niece. She loved her more than anything in this world. She was so grateful for her. Tears sprang to her eyes as she squeezed tight and wouldn’t let go.
“Are you okay?” Julie asked, holding onto her aunt.
“I’m fine.” Rita sniffled, sat down. “Just fine. How are you?”
“I’m good. That drive gets shorter every time I do it.”
“I hope you’re not speeding.”
Julie rolled her eyes. “I’m not speeding, worry wort.” She took a seat at the table.
Rita had poured sweet tea for them both and set a pitcher in between them. The staff was under strict orders to make them each a chicken pot pie for lunch just as soon as Julie was seated.
She took a swig of tea. Julie set her satchel down on the seat beside her.
“It’s so nice to see you.”
“You saw me last week, at the hospital,” Julie replied with a laugh.
“I know. But it’s never enough.”
“How are you feeling? Really?”
Rita sighed. “I could be better. Mostly, I’m anxious. The surgery is scheduled for two weeks from today.”
“I’ll be on spring break. I can come and take care of you.”
“Would you? That would take a load off my mind.”
“Of course I will.” Julie reached out to hold one of Rita’s hands. She squeezed it. “Don’t you have someone staying with you already though?”
“Yes, Matilda is at the house. She’s … well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about her. And a few other things. That’s why I wanted to meet for lunch.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
A waitress brought their pot pies and set them on the table. They looked delicious with steaming crunchy golden pastry on top and served with a side of rice.
“I’m starving,” Julie said, picking up her fork. “What did you want to talk about?”
Rita moved her fork around on the table. “Well, firstly, it’s about Matilda.”
“It’s a bit strange you’ve got her living with you. I have to say that.”
“There’s a reason for it. You see … she’s your cousin. I think she is. I’m not entirely sure.”
“Huh?” Julie gaped. “What do you mean, my cousin?”
“I don’t know exactly, honey. Just that she came into the cafe and told me she’d done a DNA test and was looking for Tyler Osbourne, her cousin. So, we talked, and I spent some time with her, and I think she’s telling the truth. Anyway, I’m going to do a DNA test to see if she really is connected to me. But that’s why she’s staying at the house.”
Worry etched Julie’s features. “You let a stranger, claiming to be my cousin, move into the lake house with you? With no proof?”
“She showed me the test results,” Rita objected. Although now, hearing Julie’s words, she did wonder if she’d been foolish.
“You’re far too trusting, Aunt Rita.” Julie ate a bite of pie.
“Maybe you’re right. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Even if she’s telling the truth, how could that be? Whose kid is she?”
“That’s what I don’t know. You’re an only child. In my family, there was just me and Helen. So unless there’s another relative we don’t know about…”
“Okay, well, I definitely think we should do a bit more digging on that.”
“Regardless, I think you’ll love her. She’s such a nice girl. She’s been so good to me, taking care of me and helping out around the cafe. She’s Australian, I think I mentioned that.”
“I’m grateful to her for that. I just worry about you,” Julie said. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll leave my hairbrush with you, and you can get my DNA to compare with hers. I don’t want to be difficult or contrary, but I care about you, and I don’t want to see you taken advantage of.”
“I hear you,” Rita replied. “I’ll get all the tests done. I don’t think Matilda will mind, in fact, that’s what she came here to do—to find the truth about who she is.”
“Okay.”
“And there’s another thing.” She cleared her throat. “You know I’m sick, right?”
“I know … but we’ll get through this. The doctors said we’d caught it in time.”
“Maybe, we’re staying positive anyway. But my cousin Cathy is causing a stink. She’s going after the cafe.”
“What does that mean?” Julie’s brow furrowed with worry lines.
Rita explained the situation to Julie, who stopped eating and put her fork down on the table.
“So, she thinks she can just come along, all these years later, and take half of the cafe from you? When you’ve worked so hard to keep it going and make it into an institution in Covington?”
Rita nodded. “That’s exactly what Matilda said.”
Julie huffed. “Well, that’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then, Rita spoke up again. “You know I’d hoped to give you the cafe someday.”
Julie swallowed and reached for her tea. She drank quietly, then looked at Rita with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you know I’m studying to be a psychologist.”
“I know you are. And I’m so proud of you.”
“I don’t love the cafe the way you do.”
“So, maybe I should let it go then?” Rita mused, leaning back in her chair.
She’d grown up in this place. Watched her father develop the recipes in the old kitchen. It’d been done up several times since then, renovated, expanded, and modernised. But the bones of it remained. It was a relic of her childhood, her past. A history untold and unremembered by anyone other than her and Cathy. Her parents were gone. Her sister had died. The cousins who’d run about the cafe with her decades earlier had moved away. All but Cathy.
“You shouldn’t let it go. You’re acting like your sickness has already won. I can’t listen to this.” Julie pressed both hands to her ears, looking stricken.
Rita reached for her hands and gently moved them down. “I haven’t given up. I promise.”
“I can’t lose you as well…” Julie’s voice broke.
“You won’t. I’m going to fight this thing, for your sake. I will.” She’d been tempted to give up, to let go of all the things she’d been clinging to for so long. But seeing Julie’s face, hearing her tortured words, she couldn’t do that to her niece. She owed it to her to do everything in her power to take this battle all the way.
“Thank you,” Julie said. “I don’t have anyone but you. Dad’s family live so far away, and they love me, I know that. But I don’t see them much. If you leave me … I’ll be all alone in the world.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Rita replied with a sigh. “But I do have to think about what’s best for the cafe. And for me. Maybe it’d help me to have Cathy shoulder some of the load around here.”
“You do need help. But not from Cathy. You can’t stand each other. You’ll be far more stressed with all the conflict between you than you are now.”
Rita patted Julie’s hand. “You’re probably right about that. But the problem is, she’s also right. Her dad was part owner of this place. And truthfully, I can’t say one way or the other whether she inherited a portion of it.”
“How can you find out?”
“I suppose I’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help. I know I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know much about anything, but I don’t think you should give up a single piece of this cafe. Not to Cathy. Sell the whole thing if you like to someone who’ll care for it. But don’t give it away. Cathy doesn’t have the right personality to run The Honeysuckle, and you know that. Imagine how the staff would revolt!”
Rita laughed at that. She was right. “Amanda would tip cornbread batter down Cathy’s shirt and storm out on day one.”
“You’d have a mass exodus,” Julie continued as she giggled along with her aunt.
“A communist revolt!”
“The overthrow of tyranny!”
“It’ll be gossip all over town,” Julie added.
“Oh heck, I’ll be on the news, won’t I? Local cafe owner arrested for the stabbing death of her cousin…”
They laughed until their sides hurt. Rita couldn’t remember when she’d laughed so hard. Probably not since Helen’s death.
Finally, they calmed themselves, and Rita wiped the tears from her eyes with a napkin. She inhaled a deep, cleansing breath. “You’re absolutely right. You’ve got so much wisdom for your age, honey. I couldn’t work with Cathy. It’d be a bloodbath.”
“So, we’ll figure out something else.”
“Yes, we’ll have to. Because I’m getting too tired to manage everything myself. And with treatments…”
“I wish I could do something to help you,” Julie replied with a sympathetic look.
“At least Matilda is here. She’s been such a help to me already. And I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking on a little more responsibility.”
“If you think you can trust her…”
“I do. But I’ll keep you updated on that.”
Rita understood her niece’s reluctance to embrace this stranger from the other side of the world. But there was something about Matilda that Rita immediately liked. Not to mention the fact that she looked and behaved so much like Helen. Even the way she smiled reminded Rita of her sister. She didn’t want to say anything to Julie about it, wasn’t sure how her niece would take it. It’d always been a sore spot for her that she and Helen were nothing alike. And she might not take kindly to finding a stranger with more of a family resemblance than she had.