Chapter Thirty-Six
Willow’s eyes went wide. “Sue … had a daughter? Who is she? What happened?”
Rina took another swallow of cocoa and frowned into the mug.
“If we’re going to have this conversation, we need something a little stronger.
” She got up and fished a bottle of Jameson out of one of the kitchen cabinets, standing on tiptoe to reach it, and splashed some into each of their mugs before continuing.
When she did, Rina’s voice was bleak. “Robin died. Young—she was only a teenager, I believe. She came from Sue’s first marriage—yes, Susan was married once, and yes, to a man,” Rina said in response to Willow’s near gasp.
“She was so young herself, barely out of college, and back then, it wasn’t easy to simply announce to the world that one wasn’t interested in men—getting married was what well-bred girls were expected to do.
The marriage was mercifully brief—annulled, I think—with him not even knowing Sue was pregnant.
She wanted nothing from him, and he took off. ”
But Willow had latched on to the first part of the story. “Robin died? Are you sure?”
Rina saw the stab of hope; then, as the young woman thought it through and did the math, she saw Willow’s hope wilt, replaced with bewilderment, then disappointment.
She reached over and put her hand on Willow’s.
“I know. You wonder if you could have been … her. Sue’s daughter.
She understood you so much better than your own family, didn’t she? ”
Willow nodded. “To tell the truth, I don’t think my parents ever liked me all that much.
I’ve always felt like this massive disappointment, like they wanted the perfect child and got this peculiar kid who didn’t fit into their lives.
But with Sue—I fit. Some part of me always wished…
” She paused. “And then they took her away from me.”
“I think part of her wished it too,” Rina said. “It was in her face whenever she spoke of you—and she never forgot you, never stopped missing you. But no, Robin would have to be well into her forties now if she’d lived.”
Willow looked away, a little embarrassed. “It’s silly; of course it couldn’t be true. But you’re right; Sue was the closest thing to real family I had.”
Rina grasped Willow’s other hand, turning earnestly to face her.
“But don’t you see? That’s the thing Sue learned, the thing we all learned, Mac and Diana and Catherine too …
sometimes you’re born into your family, and sometimes you go find it for yourself.
Family is about much more than blood.” Her eyes starting to well up, she managed a smile.
“Sue was our family. So now you are too.”
Willow smiled too. “Can I call you Aunt Rina, then?”
Rina released her hand and took a swig of her whiskey-flavored cocoa. “I’d be offended if you didn’t. Aunt Rina I’ll be, henceforth.”
Willow grinned. Then she asked hesitantly, “Can you tell me what happened? With Sue and the baby? What happened to Robin?”
“Sue wouldn’t tell me,” Rina said. “Only that she died. They used to travel together—just the two of them, during their school breaks. Sue never said so straight out, but I think something terrible happened on one of those trips, and Robin died. Then Sue found her way to the island and made a new life here; first in the summers and then year-round. She never once left the country, or even Maine, after that, as far as I know.”
Willow reached her hand out to Rina again. “Can you tell me about her? About Sue? I know I missed so much, but … can you help me know more about who she was?”
Rina took the proffered hand; her heart broke a little at the yearning in the girl’s eyes, and she felt the now-familiar stab of guilt at her own role in keeping the two of them away from each other.
“Of course. I’ll tell you anything.” She grinned mischievously. “Want to hear how we met?”
Willow nodded eagerly.
“It was around twelve years ago, and I had just moved to the island. I was trying to set up the shop and decide where I could put the kiln so it wouldn’t burn the dock down.”
Outside the window, chill rain and icy gusts presaged the coming storm. Willow listened as Rina spun the memories, loving the stories, knowing the telling of them was likely as healing for Rina as it was for Willow.
It took only one more cup of cocoa and two slugs of Jameson; by midafternoon, Willow could see Rina beginning to sag, the exhaustion of the past three days at last overtaking her.
She persuaded Rina to go and rest, maybe try to sleep the night through, promising she would reach out to Diana and Mac about keeping the guests fed and that someone would wake Rina if there was anything at all anyone needed …
Willow had no intention of waking her under any circumstances; the poor woman was all but limp with weariness.
Rina went to bed, and Willow climbed back up to her borrowed room.
She sat cross-legged on the brass double bed, a well-worn afghan around her shoulders, Finn’s head resting on her thigh.
She liked this room; with its cozy dormer beneath the sloped roof, it reminded her a little of Annabel’s poet-garret room at Cameron House.
Willow found herself staring at her backpack, where she had shoved Naomi’s envelope, minutes before hell exploded at the bottom of a hill; she had forgotten it in the chaos that followed. Naomi’s final words echoed back to her: It doesn’t change anything … but I feel like you have a right to know …
She set her teacup on the nightstand and reached for the bag, pawing through its random contents until she found the envelope at the bottom.
A last gift from a dead woman. Willow slipped her thumb under the flap and opened the envelope, pulling out several sheets of dense typing.
She read the report. Then she read it again.
It should have been a surprise; instead, the buried truth the PI had uncovered felt almost inevitable.
The investigator had tracked down Marisa Talbot, Peter Talbot’s widow.
After Peter’s death, the young woman had departed for her hometown and quickly—too quickly—married her childhood sweetheart.
The couple had settled down and bought a house on the shores of Lake Michigan, where she gave birth six months later to a little girl.
And eventually, years later, the daughter of Marisa Talbot Davis and Bernard Davis had grown up and found her way back to Little North Island—Effie Cameron’s niece, Annabel Cameron’s great-niece, Peter Talbot’s daughter.
Susan Davis had been the rightful heir to Cameron House all along.
Did Sue even know who she was? Willow wondered.
For that matter, did Joel and the Misses Drummond know?
Willow didn’t think they did; Dot’s indignance at Effie leaving the house to someone from Away—she realized she was mentally capitalizing the word herself now—had been real, as had Joel’s frustration at being kept out of the loop, which had its own implications.
Could the ghosts keep secrets from each other as well as from the living?
And if Sue had found another Cameron heir, who was it?
If her daughter, Robin, had died as a teenager, Sue’s line would have ended there … but what else had Sue found?
Sue had left Widow’s Walk for Willow to read.
Would she have done that if the novel were truly pure fiction?
Hank’s lies about his own connection to the family didn’t mean that Annabel Cameron Ramsey’s son, Douglas, hadn’t lived and fought in the war and died there.
What if he had married overseas and had a child?
And if he did, what had happened to the wife and baby?
Who was the sad woman pictured in the locket?
Willow needed more information, but with Naomi and Geralt both gone, there was literally no one alive who had the answers she needed, and most of the dead who might know seemed to be beyond her reach. Except, possibly, for Annabel.
Cameron House was locked; she needed to get inside. But how?
She remembered something Rina had said after dinner on Willow’s first night at the cabin, the day of Sue’s memorial. Do you know, I haven’t even begun to clear out her things?… her jacket in the hall closet … her keys are still right there in the pocket …
Willow smiled. Okay then, she thought. The quest is still on.
Sue’s coat, hanging in the closet as Rina had predicted, was a dull army green; like Sue herself, it was practical and unglamorous, and Willow would have known whose it was even without the few silvery hairs that still clung to the inside of the fleece-lined hood.
In the left-hand inner pocket, she found a small ring of keys.
Willow heard an anxious whine from the hallway behind her.
It was Finn. He was not happy with her; his pointed face made his displeasure abundantly clear.
Where do you think you’re going? It’s wet and cold outside, and I can smell the rain.
You’re about to do something irresponsible and ill-advised, aren’t you?
Be smart; find a nice blanket and curl up underneath it.
If you make me a grilled cheese sandwich, I’ll share it with you.
The feathery tail gave an encouraging wag.
Willow smiled, walking over to the corgi and scratching behind his pointed ears. “You stay here, boy. I won’t be long; I need to check on something. Stay and take care of Rina. She needs the company. Go do your emotional support animal thing. Go to Rina. Rina.”
The dog looked at her suspiciously, then made a little chuffing sound and trudged back up the hallway to Rina’s room.
You be careful, he seemed to say as he gave her one last look. I won’t be there to rescue you this time, you know.
“It’s okay, boy. I won’t need rescuing,” she said confidently.
She hoped it was true.
Willow slipped Sue’s oversize green coat off the hanger. Promising herself she wouldn’t do anything stupid, she shoved her arms into the too-long sleeves, pulled the jacket’s warmth around her like a talisman, and stepped out into the whipping wind and rain.
She didn’t think Sue would mind.