Chapter 19 Maddie
MADDIE
Alittle while later, I’m touched to be surrounded by this group of women who clearly see me as family.
We’re all sitting around the big round table in the break room, munching on the homemade frosted sugar cookies that Teresa brought in today.
Everyone made short work of offering their condolences as they started setting food in front of me.
For the last half hour they’ve been sharing memories of my parents and me as they offer one homemade goody after another.
And honestly, it’s been more healing than the actual memorial service was.
I don’t even feel bad crying a little because half of them are crying too.
“We’ve been wondering when you’d come,” Eleanor says, patting my hand. She’s the shift supervisor—a tall elegant lady with short white hair and pretty blue dangly earrings.
“She had to finish school,” Aggie reminds her.
“But these last six months,” Eleanor continues. “We thought you’d call or something, dear.”
I do feel a little guilty about that, but I was really just trying to deal with all the fallout that losing my dad brought. I even had to take extra time at school. But at least I managed to finish, even if I was a little behind schedule at the end.
“She’s here now,” Rosa declares with a big smile. “That’s all that matters.”
“True enough,” Eleanor says, patting my hand again. “Now I know we all just want to hear everything about Maddie’s life, but we’ve got to get back to work.”
“Wait,” I say, hating what’s coming but knowing I owe it to them to tell the truth. “I have some bad news.”
“What news?” Eleanor asks.
There isn’t a gentle way to say it, so I just get it all out there.
“My dad… he didn’t leave the business to me,” I tell her.
“And my stepmother isn’t really interested in the business, especially since we won’t have any new figurines without my dad.
So she’s breaking up the company and selling it for parts.
If there were anything I could do about it, I would.
You know I love this place. And he loved it too… ”
I bite back a sob and wait for them to panic.
But they’re just kind of looking at each other in confusion.
“Maddie,” Eleanor says. “You and I should probably talk privately for a bit. Everyone else, go on and finish up what’s on your table.”
She rises and I follow her into the little office. Eleanor lowers herself into the seat behind the desk and I sit opposite her, noticing that she has one of the drawings I made for her when I was a kid framed and hanging on the wall.
In the drawing, my parents and I are stick figures standing in a room with stick figure ladies at tables holding paintbrushes. Each of us is wearing a smile so big it escapes the confines of our circle faces.
For a moment, Eleanor just looks out the window at the bare branches of the trees that surround the factory. Then she turns her gaze to me.
“Maddie, I think we need to talk about a lot of things,” she says gently. “But first, I have some information that I suspect is going to be news to you.”
“What is it?” I ask.
I can’t imagine how things can get much worse than they are right now, but I do my best to brace myself for whatever she’s about to tell me.
“Maddie, did you know that this factory belongs to you?” she asks.
I blink at her in complete shock, then reality sets in.
“Maybe my dad intended that at one time,” I tell her. “But that was before he remarried. He didn’t leave me anything at all in his will.”
“He didn’t have to leave it to you,” Eleanor explains in a patient voice like she’s still talking to the kid who made that drawing. “It was already yours.”
“It… it… what?” I ask.
“It’s been in your name since you were a child,” she tells me with a warm smile, leaning forward to place her hand on mine again. “He set it all up in a trust and long story short, since you turned twenty-one it’s been yours free and clear. You can do whatever you like with the factory.”
My dad always told me that Angel Mountain would take care of me, but the words mean something different now. He wasn’t just talking about the people or the fresh mountain air.
“That’s why you wanted to hear from me,” I realize out loud as fresh tears gather in my eyes, threatening to spill over.
“Well, that’s why we thought we would hear from you,” Eleanor says with a smile. “We wanted to hear from you because you’re family around here and we missed you.”
Suddenly the dam bursts and I’m all-out bawling.
Eleanor moves around the desk and sits in the chair beside me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and surrounding me with comfort.
“Now, Maddie,” she says softly. “We know you may not be much interested in running this place. And if he really didn’t leave you anything else then you might need to sell it. But don’t you worry about us for a single minute. We’re scrappy ladies and not one of us would hold it against you.”
“I would never sell this place,” I tell her, still sniffling. “He told me this place was my home, and I know now that he meant it. This is what he wanted for me. I’m sure we can keep things going, even if it’s a struggle without new figurines.”
That’s probably easier said than done. I know the new figurines were always the best sellers.
“I have something to show you,” Eleanor says with a twinkly eyed smile. “Two things, really.”
I follow her out to the hall and down to Dad’s old studio. He didn’t have them in any of the other factories, but he used to say that Angel Mountain inspired him. And since this place wasn’t built from the ground up just to replicate the figures in resin, there are plenty of extra rooms.
She throws open the door and I’m amazed at what I see.
“Just about every year he made a handful of figures,” Eleanor explains as my feet carry me toward the tables where dozens of clay sculptures are displayed. “A few went on to be annual releases, but the ones that are still here were never used. Your dad was a prolific artist.”
“Wow,” I say, smiling at a koala mama with a baby on her back and a little wreath on her head. “I can’t believe this.”
“There’s something else too,” Eleanor says.
“You know Teresa’s a wonder at painting.
She’s been trying her hand at sculpting just for fun for the last few years, even took classes at the local arts center.
She finally got up the nerve to show your father her work the last time he was up here.
He told her that if she kept it up she would have her own line.
Of course her work is nothing like what your father could do, but we all think her figures are very sweet. ”
I head to the little table set up in the corner and I’m blown away.
A family of little gingerbread people are captured in various activities. One is holding a gingerbread baby, one is rolling out cookie dough, and another is slipping a candy cane into a stocking.
“They’re incredible,” I tell Eleanor truthfully. “Teresa has a real gift.”
“We all think so too,” Eleanor tells me with a warm smile.
“So we do have new figures,” I realize out loud. “We have plenty of new figures, and we even have a new line.”
“This factory also has something else,” Eleanor tells me. “It owns the trademark for the company name. The rest were just branches of this original location.”
“So we can keep going,” I say. “We can keep this place going even if Delilah shuts the rest of them down.”
“You sure can,” Eleanor tells me. “If you want to, that is.”
“Of course I want to keep it,” I tell her. “More than anything.”
“Then it sounds like he left you just what you wanted,” she says.
“Let’s tell the others,” I tell her.
“There’s one more thing that might be useful to you,” she says, heading right instead of left as we leave the studio.
I follow her up a staircase and at the top she opens a door to reveal a tiny apartment.
It’s on the corner of the building, so there’s a beautiful vista of the snow coming down hard on the trees outside the windows in the small living room and kitchenette.
There’s a bed on the opposite wall, and a door to what I can see from here is a bathroom with a clawfoot tub.
And right by the big window on the living room wall, there’s a desk with a lamp and a large framed copy of the photo of me with my parents on that carriage ride that I’ve been carrying with me everywhere.
“Dad,” I sigh.
All the puzzle pieces start to click together in my mind now.
The way he talked about Angel Mountain being my home—he meant it literally.
I always knew that being responsible for a huge international company was overwhelming to him. I heard him say more than once that he wished he could just go back to the old days and concentrate on sculpting. He never cared about the money. And he raised me so that I wouldn’t either.
My father didn’t forget me in his will.
He wasn’t taking anything away from me when he left the company to Delilah. He was unburdening me, giving me the opportunity to live a creative life that was simpler and happier than his.
What I’m looking at here is my chance to work on my book and spend time with people I care about, instead of being rushed off on flights across the ocean and badgered in conference calls.
The factory here will earn enough to cover my needs, and the women here are like family to me. This is the perfect place to heal and be happy. It’s the most beautiful inheritance I can imagine. And he built it for me long before he left me.
“He wanted this for me,” I say softly. “He gave me the best of what he built, and nothing more.”
“He loved you with everything he had, Maddie girl,” Eleanor says.
“And he was incredibly proud of you. He hoped you would sit at that desk and dream up a hundred wonderful stories, just like he sculpted a hundred animals in the studio downstairs. He was planning to bring you here and show you everything once you were finished with school, but he never got that chance.”
“I can’t believe it,” I murmur.
“Well, this kitchen is only stocked with canned goods,” she tells me. “But there’s coffee, milk, and plenty of homemade goodies in the break room fridge, definitely enough to cover you until you get down the mountain to the shops.”
We head back down to the factory floor and the first thing I notice is that the snow is coming down so hard that the trees just beyond the massive windows are almost invisible now.
“I showed her everything,” Eleanor tells the other ladies. “And she’s planning to stay.”
Everyone cheers and I feel a wave of warmth in my chest like I’m home. And even though I can still feel the tears on my cheeks, I’m smiling so hard I can barely see.
“We’ll celebrate soon,” Eleanor tells the other ladies. “For now, let’s all get home before we wind up snowed in.”
The ladies rush around grabbing their bags and coats, chattering amongst themselves about the storm and about maybe throwing a little party when the snow lets up.
When we get outside, I see that my cab driver waited for me after all.
“Would you like to come home with me, dear?” Eleanor offers, indicating a green station wagon that just pulled up. “Reginald is right here and we’d be honored for you to stay as long as you’d like.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “But there’s something else I need to do.”
She gives me a quick hug before she runs for her husband’s station wagon and I run for my cab.
I know I’m being a fool. There’s a storm coming. I should just settle in here and get ready to start my new life.
The snow is coming down so hard now that the view of the mountains is disappearing entirely. Even if I make it to the chalet, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to make it back here.
But there’s no way I’m going to be able to really move on until I give Jake Stone a piece of my mind.
“Thank you for waiting,” I tell the driver.
“I couldn’t leave you up here in all this,” he tells me with a smile. “Where to?”
I give him directions to the chalet, and then say a little prayer as the cab starts off around the windy mountain roads.
We’re about to pass the lodge and start up the hill when I spot Jake’s SUV in the lot along with a bunch of other cars. I haven’t seen the lot this full since I was a kid.
“Wait,” I tell the driver. “Here is fine.”
“Are you sure, miss?” he asks me. “I don’t want you trying to walk up the hill in this storm.”
“This is perfect,” I tell him. “The person I want to see is here.”
“Need me to stick around again, sweetheart?” he asks me, looking a little worried about it.
“Nope,” I tell him, secure in the knowledge that I can spend my money on a room at the lodge if I can’t get back to the factory tonight.
He looks relieved at this news and pleased when I tip generously again.
“Good folks in there,” he says again, nodding to the lodge.
“Yes,” I agree. “Most of them.”