3. Margot
THREE
Margot
SEVEN YEARS LATER
PRESENT DAY
I forgot how to tell a story.
I was like a singer who had lost her voice or a photographer who no longer had her sight. It was as brutal and as life changing as if my fingers had stopped moving at every joint.
I didn’t have a retelling story problem, where one of the classics fell from my memory for a night, like Rapunzel or Beauty and the Beast . No, it was worse. I forgot how to write a story from beginning to middle to end. One that people could stand to read.
I had a lot of places where I laid the blame. I was happy to make a list of excuses. My father’s sudden death only two years after my mom’s. The relationship that had sucked every ounce of my energy and ended with me having to move out of my apartment. The lack of support from my publisher when I had begged for editorial help. I was willing to wield the sword in any direction but inward until Colleen called.
My editor was one of the most direct people I knew. It was something I admired about her, until today.
“Look, hon. We’re pulling everything. We don’t have a choice.” There was a briskness to her voice that I found heartless when she spoke.
I felt the protest I wanted to make stuck in the back of my throat. Instead, it came out shriveled and pathetic.
“But why? You can’t really mean everything .” My world had shattered, and the shards were painful to accept. I wanted to glue each one back together. Why didn’t Colleen have the glue?
“Frankly, the reviews are terrible. The local stores canceled orders and there’s going to be an issue with the big chains. It comes down to being the wrong book at the wrong time. It’s part of the business. The side I hate to see.”
I sat on the loveseat in my apartment the phone still pressed to my ear. The two rooms had already been emptied out. This was one of the only pieces of furniture I owned. My college roommate and I had bought a set our senior year and I ended up with the loveseat. That was six years ago. Since then, I had lugged it around with me everywhere, including this last move with Ethan.
“What do we do?” I was clinging to her answer.
“You know your contract hinged on the success of your first book in order to publish the next. I think you know what this means.”
Maybe I wanted to torture myself. Maybe I wanted some part of this conversation to be hard for Colleen. I couldn’t just fall in line with what she said. I needed more. More sympathy. More of a solution. I wanted a plan and for her to tell me it would be okay.
“No, I don’t know,” I whispered into the phone. “We can fix this, right? I can fix it.”
She sighed. “There’s nothing viable in this right now. But you should get back on the horse. Try again. You can write another book someday. And if you do, give me a call. I’ll take a look at it.”
The book was all I had left. It was the one thing grounding me. Giving me hope. Giving me a damn purpose. Colleen couldn’t do this.
“There must be somethi?—”
“Hon, hon, I know it’s hard, but some books just don’t make it. Take some time off. A trip, maybe? Recharge, refocus. It’s the best writing advice I can give you. It’s what I tell all my authors. Time and space are going to be the best things for you right now. This will look different to you in a few months. Goodbye, Margot. Take care.” She hung up before I could make more embarrassing pleas.
My book was shit. The entire world knew it.
I sank from the loveseat to the floor. The loneliness was crushing.
It was a few seconds before I recognized the speaker next to the door was buzzing. I wiped the tears along with a full streak of mascara across the tops of my cheeks and staggered to my feet.
I cracked the door. “Yes?” I expected to see another one of Ethan’s movers. He seemed to have forgotten quite a few things.
A thick manilla envelope was shoved through the crack in the door.
“Need you to sign.” The envelope was followed by a clipboard and pen.
“What’s this?” I asked. I still hadn’t opened the door past the width the chain lock allowed.
“I’m the courier. I don’t know.” He smacked his gum and waited in the hall for me to return the clipboard.
I didn’t think. I scrawled my signature along the bottom line and handed it to him. He jogged downstairs and I turned on my heels.
The outer envelope was only a shell. Inside, I discovered another envelope. This one stamped: The Law Offices of Dean Waters, Attorney at Law.
What in the hell was this? I swallowed hard and my fingers began to tremble. Was this really from Dean? Dean from Marshoak Island? Was I being sued? I tried to make sense of it before I even tore into the envelope.
How many years had it been since I heard from him? I left Marshoak seven years ago at the end of the summer and I hadn’t been back. I never understood what happened between Mom and Uncle Walt. It was a topic I couldn’t even bring up. Because going back to Marshoak meant Caleb. I found a weird and guilty comfort in knowing Mom wasn’t going to force it as long as she and Uncle Walt weren’t speaking.
I finally broke the seal and slid the papers out of the envelope.
There was a cover page with the Dean’s law office information followed by a letter. I read it out loud in the quiet apartment.
Dear Ms. Delaney,
I’m sorry to inform you that your uncle, Walt Shepherd is deceased. As his only living relative, Mr. Shepherd named you as his sole heir and thus the transfer of his estate goes to you in full trust. Please prepare to meet in Marshoak Island, North Carolina to settle the estate. You can reach me at the following number.
Sincerely,
Dean Waters
U ncle Walt had died? I sat on the floor taking big slow breaths. I re-read the letter, looking for more details, but Dean had written it as if I were a stranger to him. Maybe he had forgotten who I was. Was that possible?
My hands hadn’t stopped shaking. Walt was my last living relative. I had no idea he had died. Did that make me a terrible person or just a terrible niece?
I was learning my parents had kept things from me to protect me, never expecting me to have to face them on my own when they were gone. Uncle Walt’s passing was one of those things they hadn’t prepared me for.
I thought about Colleen’s harsh advice. I also knew I only had another day or two in this apartment before the new tenants moved in. I needed somewhere to go.
I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but somewhere inside me, I knew whatever it was it was going back to Marshoak Island.