Chapter 16
Emma was on the patio at Winslow’s with a cup of coffee when her phone buzzed on the table beside her. She looked at the screen without picking it up.
The name Arthur Kendrick appeared on the screen.
His name was still in her contacts from the year before, after Gloria died. She had never thought to remove it.
Emma let the call go to voicemail.
When the notification appeared, she picked up the phone, tapped play and set it back on the table.
“Emma. Sweetheart. It’s Arthur. Uncle Arthur.
Listen, I don’t know what you’ve been told down there, but I think there’s been a real misunderstanding.
I’d love to get on the phone with you for five minutes so we can straighten it out, family to family.
Give me a call back when you can, sweetheart. This is nothing that can’t be fixed.”
Emma stared at the phone.
He called her sweetheart, twice.
She had heard that same voice three days after Gloria’s funeral, when Arthur told her the cottage was coming down around itself and there was nothing there worth making the trip to see. He had sounded concerned then too. Almost protective.
She had believed him then, but things were different now.
Emma forwarded the voicemail to Rachel without listening to it again.
The second call came at ten-twenty. She watched it ring through and waited for the voicemail.
This time Arthur sounded less patient. It was very important that they speak.
He knew she had retained counsel and didn’t know what Rachel had been telling her, but he and Emma had decades of family history that shouldn’t be discussed through lawyers.
Emma sent that one to Rachel too.
The third came at eleven-fifteen.
By then, the concern had disappeared. Arthur wanted her to remember that he was the only family she had left and asked whether she was really willing to let strangers turn her against him.
Emma listened once and forwarded it.
The fourth call came at eleven-forty.
She let it ring. When the voicemail appeared, she played it and heard nothing but ten seconds of an open line. There was a television or maybe a fan somewhere in the background, followed by a click.
Emma played that one twice before sending it to Rachel.
Then she sat back and looked at the coffee she had barely touched.
She had believed him. That was the part she couldn’t get away from. Arthur had lied to her about the cottage, about Gloria and about what he had been doing for years, but the lie itself wasn’t what bothered her most. It was how easily she had accepted it. He had counted on that.
Emma had been in Chicago with a job that consumed most of her life, and Arthur had known she wouldn’t ask many questions about a cottage more than a thousand miles away. He had known she trusted him because he was family, and he had used that trust to keep her from looking any closer.
The humiliation of it had nothing to do with money.
Then there was the part she had been trying not to think about.
Arthur was the last person alive who had known her father as a boy.
Gloria was gone. Her mother was gone. Edmund had never met David Kendrick and knew him only through the stories Gloria had told.
Arthur had grown up with him. He had shared the cottage with him and probably been somewhere nearby the afternoon David took a jackknife to the underside of the porch railing.
Emma hated that the person who had done so much damage was also the only person left who might remember things about her father that no one else could tell her.
She didn’t know what to do with that yet.
What she did know was that she wasn’t going to let Arthur talk his way out of what he’d done.
For most of her life, Emma had been good at putting difficult feelings somewhere out of reach and moving on to the next thing that needed doing.
It had worked until Gloria’s letter, and now anger seemed to be taking up all the space grief had finally opened.
Rachel called at noon.
“Emma, are you okay?”
“He’s called four times.”
“I know. I have all four. He was formally served yesterday afternoon, so this isn’t surprising. Don’t answer him. Don’t reply to email. If he shows up at Winslow’s or anywhere else you happen to be, you walk away and call me. Are you with me?”
“Yes.”
“If we have to, we can file a restraining order. I don’t want to do that if we can avoid it, but I will if need be.”
Emma hated the thought of that, but answered, “I understand.”
“There’s a development, and it’s a good one. His attorney filed a notice of appearance this morning. Ted Ballard, out of Marathon. I’ve been across from him twice. He’s competent, which means everything should go counsel to counsel from here.”
“Should?”
Rachel was quiet for half a second.
“Yes. Should.”
Emma looked at the four calls on her screen.
“He already has a lawyer and called me four times anyway.”
“I know.”
“You’re not making me feel any better.”
“I’m your lawyer, Emma. Feeling better is not the part I’m best at. You want someone who tells you the truth, no matter what.”
Emma smiled despite herself. Rachel was right, truth was what Emma needed after so many lies from Arthur.
“Besides, Maeve Corwin is probably better at that,” Rachel added. “And there’s a bar in Old Town full of women who would happily take the assignment.”
Emma laughed.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Rachel said. “Save every voicemail and keep a record of every attempt he makes to contact you.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you Friday at nine. I should have the Miami probate file worked through by then.”
After they hung up, Emma thought about Gloria and the two sons she had loved. One had died far too young. The other had spent years disappointing her and had apparently taken advantage of her trust.
Emma couldn’t imagine what that had been like for her grandmother.
For the first time, she wondered whether Gloria’s decision to leave the cottage to Emma had been less about punishing Arthur than about finally accepting there were some things she couldn’t save him from.
Maybe the cottage and her father’s memory had been the only things she could still save.
Emma spent the early afternoon in the wicker chair with Gloria’s leather notebook open on her knee.
She had promised herself she would read it slowly and in private, and she still meant to. That afternoon, she read the first ten pages.
The entries were short and dated, written in Gloria’s careful handwriting.
Edmund brought oranges from the farmers market. He peeled one and gave me half without asking. It has been so long since anyone did that for me that I didn’t know what to do with the half of an orange in my hand.
The bank called about the mortgage. There is no mortgage.
I told them so. The young man on the phone didn’t believe me and asked to speak with my husband.
My husband died in 1998. I told him this.
He put me on hold, came back, apologized and asked for my Social Security number. I hung up. Edmund laughed.
Rebecca sent a photograph of the girls at the beach. They are getting so tall. Edmund keeps it on his kitchen table a week before he moves it to the shelf.
Then Emma reached an entry that made her stop.
Called Em today. She was in a meeting. I didn’t leave a message. She sounded tired even in her voicemail voice.
Emma read it again.
Then once more.
There was no complaint in it. Gloria hadn’t written that Emma never answered or that she was too busy. She had called, heard nineteen recorded seconds of her granddaughter’s voice and written down that Emma sounded tired.
Emma closed the notebook.
For a few minutes she sat with it beneath one hand before picking up her phone and calling Edmund.
He answered on the fourth ring, slightly out of breath.
“Rebecca has made me promise to sit down before answering the telephone. I was in the kitchen and had to reach a chair before I was allowed to say hello.”
Emma smiled.
“I’m so sorry to make you rush to the phone.”
“Don’t be silly. I can’t sit in a chair forever.”
“I’ve been reading Gloria’s notebook.”
“Ah.”
“I want to ask you something, and I don’t know how to ask it without sounding like I want you to make me feel better.”
“Ask it anyway. I’ll decide whether to make you feel better.”
Emma looked at the closed notebook.
“Did she talk about me?”
“Constantly,” he said. “I could probably describe your office to you, and I haven’t been to Chicago in years. But I’m not going to tell you she didn’t notice how busy you were, because she did.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll tell you what I remember instead. She kept a list on the back of an envelope beside the sugar bowl. Things to tell Em next time.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“What kinds of things?”
“Anything. A bird she saw. Something she read in the newspaper. A joke she thought you’d like. When you called, she’d get through some of it and then the two of you would hang up, and she’d put the envelope back for the next time.”
Emma sat very still.
“I don’t know what happened to the envelopes,” Edmund said. “Gloria wasn’t sentimental about paper. She was sentimental about people.”
“Oh, Edmund.”
“I know, honey.”
“She was writing things down to tell me, and I was in a meeting.”
“Emma, she was eighty-three and had a great deal of time on her hands. You were thirty-four and didn’t. She understood that. She wasn’t keeping score.”
Emma looked toward the palms.
“I wish I’d called more.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I wish I’d known there was a list.”
“If you had known, you would have called out of guilt. Gloria wouldn’t have wanted that either.”
Emma smiled faintly.
“You knew her well.”
“I paid attention.”
That hurt a little, although Emma knew he hadn’t meant it to.
Maybe that was why it stayed with her.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m tired, I’m being fed too much and my daughter has hidden the salt.”
“Still?”
“I found it yesterday. She moved it again.”
Emma laughed.
“Come see me before the end of the week.”
“I will.”
After they hung up, Emma left the notebook closed on the table.