7. Chapter Seven
Rosie trotted out ahead of Ethan when he opened the door to the porch, her toenails clicking on the wooden planks. Katie looked over her shoulder from where she’d been staring at the lake from the railing.
He offered the red mug. “Coffee? I noticed you used cream and sugar yesterday. Hopefully, I got it right.”
She took a sip and nodded. “It’s good. Thanks.”
He gestured to one of the cushioned chairs nestled against the house. Katie took a seat while he claimed the one next to it. Rosie snuggled up next to Katie’s legs and rested her chin in her lap. Some of the weight lifted from Katie’s expression as she petted the dog’s head. Ethan smiled. Rosie seemed as eager to cheer her up as he was.
For a long moment, they both just sipped their coffee and looked out at the lake. Though they’d had all last evening to talk, it hadn’t been just the two of them. Ethan had so much he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure where to start. Fifteen years was a long time to lose touch. How did one even make up for all that lost time?
Before he could figure it out, Katie’s gaze left the lake and landed on him instead, her expression and voice tentative.
“It’s not any of my business, so you don’t have to tell me, but is Becca all right? She seems to have a lot on her mind. Your mom looks at her like she’s worried about her, and I guess you all treat her like she’s fragile.”
Trust Katie to notice when things weren’t quite right. She’d always been a very sensitive person. He released a slow sigh. Things had gotten better, but it had been a long several months—even longer years. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything. I just wondered.”
Ethan cast her something of a sad smile. “No, I’m sure you’ll pick up bits and pieces if you’re around long enough anyway. You should hear it from one of us. She’d prefer it that way.” People had been kind for the most part, but there were always those who couldn’t help themselves and loved to talk and share all the sordid details of town gossip.
Katie shifted in her chair to face him better, worry creasing her brows. She and Becca had always been good friends too.
He sighed again and rubbed his neck, the memories still so fresh. “Becca went to college in Duluth and met this guy there. Kevin. They dated for a while, and he talked her into getting a job up there when she graduated. Then they ended up living together.” He paused and swallowed down the bitterness in his throat. This part was the hardest. “She got pregnant but lost the baby.”
Katie gave him a pained look.
“It devastated her, especially when she discovered Kevin was relieved about it and had been seeing this other woman, who was pregnant with his kid too.”
Now, Katie’s eyes rounded. “That’s horrible. How could somebody do that?”
Ethan shook his head. He still had a hard time dealing with the fact that someone had used and betrayed his sister like that. “We didn’t know about the baby or any of it until she broke down and called Mom a few days later. She was in a really bad place. Mom and Dad were in Green Bay when they got the call, so Joel and I drove straight up there to get her so she wouldn’t be alone any longer than necessary.”
That drive had felt like an eternity, one filled with hypothetical conversations about throwing Kevin into Lake Superior with weights around his ankles. Thanks to their upbringing, neither he nor Joel had laid a finger on the man when he’d shown up at the apartment shortly before they’d left with Becca. However, that didn’t mean they hadn’t told him exactly what they thought of him.
“How long ago was this?”
Ethan snapped out of his memories and focused back on Katie. “It happened just before Thanksgiving.”
“I can’t imagine what that was like for all of you, especially right before the holidays.”
Ethan wouldn’t forget the nights he had spent here on the couch, worrying Becca might do something drastic. He didn’t think any of them had gotten adequate sleep for months. “It was a rough time. But she’s getting better now that she’s been home and attending church again. Understandably, that was hard for her at first. You know how people can be. Thankfully, everyone has treated her with kindness and love, minus a few minor exceptions.”
“I hear you. I’ve seen the damage even well-intentioned people can do. But I’m glad she’s doing better and can go with you.”
“Me too.”
Katie shivered then and rubbed her hands along her arms. The dampness in the air brought out the chill. Ethan set his mug on the little iron table between them and pushed to his feet. Near the door hung a row of mismatched hooks where Mom always kept a collection of throw blankets just for weather like this. He grabbed one of the thicker ones and handed it to her.
Katie thanked him with a smile and wrapped it around her shoulders. Settling into her chair again, she peered off beyond the porch into the trees at the edge of the property toward her grandma’s place. Ethan looked too. Through the brush, he glimpsed white siding. When he looked over at her again, her eyes had turned watery.
“I wonder what will happen to Grandma’s cottage.”
“She had to have put it in her will, right?” Surely, she’d left it to Katie. He couldn’t imagine her doing anything else. It wasn’t like Ruby and Leah had ever gotten along, and they had no other close family that he knew of.
Katie nodded, though she didn’t seem as sure as he was.
“I suppose you’ll find out on Monday. Do you know why you need to see the attorney?”
“I guess that’s what Grandma requested.” She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, her expression taut. “I suspect it’s because my mom and Grant won’t like her decisions. She probably knew someone would need to mediate instead of just sending out the will.”
Which meant Leah and Grant would be there too. “You won’t have to be there alone. I’ll be there.”
Her gaze jumped to him.
“I got notified as well. Your grandma must have left something for me. I assume it’s just a little something for looking after the cottage for her.” He shrugged. He’d never needed or wanted any compensation for taking care of the place. After all, until four years ago, she’d been around his entire life. Like Katie, she’d been family.
Katie tipped her head. “You’re the one who’s been taking care of it?”
“Yeah. She asked if my family would mind watching over the place, and I volunteered.” Deep down, he knew he’d done it because of Katie—because of all the memories they’d shared there. It had helped him remember the past.
“I guess she did mention your family, but I didn’t realize you were doing it.”
“I was happy to maintain it. There are a lot of good memories there.”
A weak smile wobbled on her lips, her chin dipping in a nod.
One memory rose to the forefront of Ethan’s mind. “She always made the best peanut butter cookies.”
“Yeah, she did.” Now, Katie’s voice wavered. She blinked rapidly, but a tear spilled over, and she rubbed it away with the cuff of her sleeve.
It hurt so much to see her suffering when he was powerless to do anything about it. It always had been. If only he could fix it, but death would only be fixed in eternity. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I know how much she meant to you and the shelter she provided.” He drew a deep breath. It was time he told her he wasn’t ignorant of what had happened when they were kids. Maybe it would help. “I know things weren’t good for you at home…and what Grant did.”
Her deep brown eyes widened. “You know?”
“The bruises were hard to miss, even when you tried to hide them.” He clenched his jaw at the memories and caught the way she tugged her sleeves down like she always used to do. Cold stabbed into his chest, freezing his lungs. Was she still being abused? Was Drew hurting her? But he halted the runaway thought. She’d been in short sleeves yesterday, and he hadn’t noticed any bruises or signs of mistreatment. Likely, she still did it instinctively—a habit born from the trauma of her childhood.
She seemed to process the fact that he knew for a long moment. “How did you know it was Grant?”
The memory returned to Ethan all too clearly. “I saw him grab your arm once in the parking lot at church. I guess he thought no one was looking. But I remember how scared you looked, and that’s when I started piecing things together.”
“How old were we?”
“Twelve, I think.”
Katie hunched in on herself, looking painfully small and fragile, and Ethan’s heart squeezed. He regretted so much looking back on that time. So much he felt he should apologize for.
“I should have said something to someone. I didn’t know what to do and was afraid to say anything. I’m sorry. I’ve regretted it all these years.”
Despite how he’d failed her, Katie shook her head, straightening up again. “No, don’t. You were just a kid. I don’t blame you for not saying anything. I’m not sure anyone could have done anything anyway. Grant has this scary ability to act so normally in front of others, and I was too scared to say anything too. Not even Grandma could stop it. She tried and warned him she would turn him in, but he just threatened to get lawyers involved and keep me away from her. Being an attorney, he has a lot of legal aid at his disposal. And once we were out of state, there wasn’t much she could do.”
Ethan stared at the lake for a long moment, the guilt still weighing on him. He hadn’t known what to do either, and when he’d tried, it had only made things worse. Much worse. Finally, he looked at her again. “Did he hurt you often?”
Katie rubbed her right wrist. “Sometimes. It depended on his mood and what I did or if he had a bad day at work. That was the worst. He’d take it out on me if he felt even the slightest bit disrespected or upset about something that happened.”
“Was it just you or your mom and Christopher too?”
“Just me.”
“Your mom didn’t stop it?”
Katie exhaled something like a bitter laugh and shook her head. “She hit me too sometimes. I don’t know if she was just concerned about maintaining her relationship with Grant or if I reminded her too much of my dad. All she did when I would cry to her was tell me I shouldn’t have done whatever I did to make Grant angry, like it was my fault. They always made me feel like I was at fault for what they did.”
Ethan had to fight the bitterness welling inside him. Though he’d had a pretty good idea of what was happening, hearing it from her left his stomach in knots. “I can’t even imagine hurting or allowing someone else to hurt your child.”
“She has always had problems. I don’t know why when Grandma and Grandpa were such good people. I think she has abandonment issues from when my dad dumped her. My guess is that she never opposed Grant because she was afraid he’d leave her too and ended up falling into the same habits.”
“Your dad didn’t just abandon her. He abandoned both of you.”
“Yeah, but she couldn’t take it out on him. That just left me.”
It was an awful situation to be abused by one parent and essentially discarded by the other. “Do you ever hear from him?”
Katie rubbed her thumb over the lid of her coffee mug and breathed out heavily. “I contacted him once a long time ago out of curiosity, but he has a family and didn’t want to mess it up, so he asked me not to contact him again.”
Ethan winced, and Katie gave a sad smile. “I know. When you break it down like that, I come from a wonderful set of parents.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I never really expected anything from him. I’ve never been part of his life. He never even saw me after I was born.”
Ethan couldn’t imagine being the type of man who knew he had a child and never wanting to see them. Neither could he imagine how difficult it would be not to have loving parents.
He looked off in the direction of the cottage again. All he wanted was to give Katie some encouragement or comfort. “Do you want to see the cottage? I have the key.”