Chapter 39 Harper
With the bundle of bouquets in one hand and flashlight in the other, Finn led Harper down to Ashe Lake. While they didn’t need the light yet, it wouldn’t be long before the sun bedded itself down.
Harper ducked under an evergreen branch. “Are you going to tell me what the flowers are for?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re a man of mystery, Finn Sterling.”
“Not really.” He laughed. “I just prefer focusing on one thing at a time.”
Simon Farrow first, and then what else did Finn have in mind? For a man so seemingly buttoned-up, he was full of surprises.
The lake transformed in the setting sun, pale orange and pink smearing the blue. Reeds and grass circled the water like a wreath and another turtle—or perhaps the very same one—broke the surface with its wake.
She and Finn followed the path until she saw the outcrop of rocks, and there, waiting where she’d left it, was the engraved piece with Simon’s name.
Finn handed her the flashlight and then lifted it carefully. “It’s a cuff link.”
She scanned the small lake and trees like they might finally find answers here. “Maybe he lost it when he was searching for Olivia.”
“I’ll have to do some checking.” He closed his fingers around the gold piece. “Please don’t tell anyone yet what you found.”
“Confidentiality,” she whispered. “You’ve got the paper.”
“This probably won’t stay secret for long.”
“According to Simon Farrow’s obituary, he died in 1968.”
“Sounds like you read about his father,” Finn said. “Dr. Simon Farrow was a professor in Winfield.”
“Your grandmother didn’t know if Dr. Farrow and the Simon Farrow that Olivia married were related.”
“She knows.” He shifted the flowers in his arms. “I suspect she diverted your question.”
Harper thought back to the evasive conversation she had with Mrs. Lamb. “She’s as good at deflection as you.”
“Gram will do just about anything to protect those she loves.”
How wonderful it must be to have a grandparent willing to protect and pray for her family. “The obituary mentions grandchildren but nothing about a son.”
“They were probably estranged.”
“Do you know what happened to Simon?” she asked.
Finn dropped the cuff link into his pocket. “Only speculation.”
She didn’t bother asking what he speculated.
“Come on.” He waved her toward the trees opposite Haven House, the forest shadowed by nightfall.
She hesitated. “What’s in there?”
“An answer to one of your many questions.”
“But it’s almost dark.”
When he clicked on the flashlight, curiosity drove her forward. They’d taken only a few steps into the trees when she saw a rusty iron fence and behind it—“A cemetery?”
“It belonged to the Ashe family.”
She paused by a gate, scanning the shadowed stones. “Why did you bring me here?”
Finn didn’t say anything as he walked into the small plot, and she followed him tentatively to a stone that read Abram Manning.
“Abram was my great-grandfather.” Finn placed one of the bouquets on a mountain of old flowers. “He passed along his passion for farming to my whole family.”
Harper marveled at his knowing not only where his ancestor lived but what he enjoyed.
“Is your grandfather buried here too?”
He shook his head. “We buried him at the Lamb family plot.”
Near Abram’s grave was another stone, this one engraved with Annabelle Leigh Ashe. As Finn adorned it with another bouquet, Harper squinted in the dim light to read the dates: 1920–1921.
Annabelle had been a year old.
“She was Graham and Olivia’s daughter,” he explained, still holding two of the bouquets. “Eli used to accompany Olivia up here to remember Annabelle and Reverend Ashe, and then he brought flowers on his own after Olivia was gone. I took over when he died.”
As he spoke, Harper was trying to reconcile the man who practically chased her off the property with the man who baked blueberry oatmeal and kept up his grandfather’s tradition of remembering Olivia’s daughter with flowers. “How often do you visit this place?”
“About once a week in the warmer months.”
“He’d be pleased to know that you continue to honor her family.”
“Thank you.” He set a bundle on the grave of Reverend Ashe before his flashlight beam swung past Annabelle’s plot, to a plain stone on the opposite side.
Harper crept closer and then gasped at the simply etched name. “She’s here?”
He nodded. “She died thirty years ago in Cincinnati.”
Numbers stacked up in Harper’s head. Thirty years meant Olivia lived a long while after police discovered her car. “Are you certain it’s her?”
“My grandfather was. He retrieved her body in 1976.”
“So he knew where she went . . .”
“I don’t think he knew in the early years.
After she left, an attorney sent the Lamb family money on behalf of her trust to care for the property.
When my grandfather turned twenty-five, he received another letter from the attorney.
Olivia had a provision that Eli be given the opportunity, if he wanted it, to take over the management of her personal estate.
He agreed and began to farm the portion of her land that bordered the Lamb property. ”
Harper stared down at the stark stone, marveling at Olivia’s legacy.
Her many books and all the readers she’d impacted in the past eighty years and now the women and children at Haven House—an incredible gift from this one writer who’d been faithful with her words.
“Did your grandfather receive her book income?”
“A portion of it was allocated to him in her original trust, and he invested the money well. After Olivia died, her publisher contacted him so she could be buried beside Reverend Ashe.”
“The publisher and attorney kept it all a secret,” she said slowly. “And then you and your family did the same.”
“It’s what she wanted,” he explained. “She lived quietly as Olivia Ashe for the rest of her life, but somehow managed to keep tabs, I’m told, on my grandfather.”
Finn handed Harper the final bouquet. She kissed her hand first, placing it on the cold stone, then she added the flowers on top of the many Finn had brought over the summer, glad that Olivia had finally found her way home to her daughter and husband.
“Do you know what happened to her in 1943?” she asked, stepping away from the grave.
“No, and if my grandfather knew, he didn’t tell us. But one thing keeps nagging at me.”
She waited.
“Before my grandfather handed over the trust, he told me about his visit in Cincinnati with the couple who’d cared for Olivia in her later years.”
“I bet they had some stories!”
“I don’t remember any stories but—”
“What is it?”
“I do remember their names.” He paused. “Peter and Isadore.”
Peter and— “Izzy?” she exclaimed.
“Maybe,” he said. “Their last name was Delve.”
Izzy, the name autographed in Sparrow Island, already linked Olivia and Angeline.
What if Isadore Delve knew what happened to Harper’s mom?
Her imagination bloomed, no use trying to dampen it. Not when the dots were all there. She just had to connect them.
“One last thing,” Finn said as he lowered his flashlight and moved toward the gate, the moon edging its way upward.
Her imagination usually knew few bounds, but . . . “I think this might be enough.”
He stopped on the path outside the trees, but this time several of the plants were glowing like jewels, crowning the lake.
Stepping closer, she watched a blossom slowly unfurl and then pierce the sky with its arrow-shaped bloom. “Finn—”
He grinned. “Moonflowers.”
“Like in Via’s book . . .” She stared in wonder before glancing back at him. “One I’m assuming you’ve never read.”
“Why would I read it?” He laughed. “I heard the ending is all wrong.”
She stepped toward the flowers, then bent down to examine the bold blossoms reflecting the light. “Are they really poisonous?”
“Very.”
“And they’re annuals?”
“Yep.”
“So poisonous flowers that someone continues to plant each year.”
“They were Olivia’s favorite flowers.” He shrugged. “Perhaps, in some way, because they protected their beauty.”
She took a seat in the grass, mesmerized by the parade of trumpets serenading the moon. “If you ever decide to read Moonflower Lake, you’ll find a place much like this.”
He sat beside her. “What was wrong with the ending?”
Harper sighed. “Everything.”
“Can you break down everything?”
A breeze stirred the blossoms, swirling their honeyed lemon fragrance around her and Finn. How could she explain to him the vital importance of those final scenes? The ache of an ending that didn’t justify the journey? “You really want to know?”
“I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Okay.” She turned toward him in the moonlight, collecting her thoughts. “Near the end, Laurel is about to stand up to the man who abused her and stop the evil in her life. Then she does nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Jude dies in a car crash which essentially wrecks the entire climax.”
“Thousands of people bought the book after Olivia disappeared,” Finn said. “It stayed on The New York Times bestsellers list for more than a year.”
“But none of her characters were truly changed.” And while only a few characters took the offer, Olivia always gave her cast an opportunity for redemption.
In this story, Laurel didn’t even grow in her faith.
“In the last chapter, Laurel is paddling out on the lake, relieved that Jude is gone. The end. After all she went through, the poor girl never found healing or love.”
“But she was free.”
“True, but she was quite alone in her freedom. I wanted more happily ever after for her.” Harper paused. “I guess I wanted her to find a place to belong.”
Finn glanced across Ashe Lake as if Laurel might still be paddling. “Reviewers said it was Olivia’s most poetic novel.”
“And it was beautifully written, but her loyal readers must still have been disappointed.”
He turned back to her. “I guess people change along with their stories.”
Harper plucked a blade of grass and wound it around her finger. “Did Olivia write any more novels after Moonflower Lake?”
“If she did, she published them under a pseudonym.”
“But she lived with Peter and Isadore and then . . .” She paused. “What about Simon Farrow, the dad?”
“What do you mean?” Finn asked.
“His obituary said he died in Cincinnati.”
“That’s coincidental.”
“Or providential.” She hopped to her feet, a new idea taking hold. “Do you think a member of the Lamb family could cat sit for a day or two?”
“Hold on.” He stood beside her. “Why do you need a cat sitter?”
She clasped her hands together. “Because we’re going to Cincinnati.”
“We?”
“As director of the Via Belle Literary Foundation, you have to go with me.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Delve may no longer live there,” he said. “For that matter, they might not even be alive.”
“But we have to try.”
“Harper.” He sighed. “One thing at a time.”
“Tomorrow morning, then?” She’d pack Olivia’s manuscript and read it along the way.
Finn clicked on the flashlight. “I’ll pick you up at nine.”