Chapter 60
Olivia didn’t answer the first time Shannon called her daughter that afternoon. So Shannon texted.
Please pick up. This is really, really important!
A minute later the phone rang.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
“It’s complicated, and I need to talk to you in person. Can you come over to the house?”
“Now? No. I’m in the middle of stuff. I need to wash my clothes and pay some bills…”
“It won’t take long. How about Riordan’s then? In an hour?”
“Whatever.”
Riordan’s was in downtown Bonaventure, across the street from the municipal marina. It was surprisingly busy for a late Sunday afternoon, with boaters coming in hungry after a day on the water. She ordered two iced teas and two turkey club sandwiches, Livvy’s favorite. Of course, Livvy kept her waiting for fifteen minutes. Shannon didn’t care. It gave her more time to rehearse her spiel.
When Livvy did arrive, she slid onto the bench opposite hers, out of breath, dressed in a faded T-shirt, gym shorts, and flip-flops with her hair pulled back in an off-center ponytail and the sullen expression Shannon had come to expect. Livvy noted her mother assessing her appearance.
“I told you it’s laundry day, and I have stuff to do, so don’t give me that look, okay?”
Their server appeared at their table with their order. “I didn’t know if you were hungry or what,” Shannon said.
“Okay, spill,” Livvy said, ignoring the food. “But I’m warning you, do not start on me about working at the Saint. I’m in a foul mood because I just had to write my college loan check. By the time I get done paying it every month, I’ve got almost nothing left.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that anymore,” Shannon blurted.
“What? Did they pass a new law? Overrule an old one?”
“Please slow down and let me tell you this in my own way,” Shannon said. She was jiggling her foot and tapping her fingertips on the tabletop, like she did when she was stressed or nervous.
Livvy reached across the table and stilled her mother’s hands. “You’re starting to freak me out. I promise, I’m listening. Just lay it on me.”
“It’s about your father. Your biological father. He died recently, and I just found out that he apparently included you in his will.”
“The deadbeat left me some old hubcaps? A double-wide?”
“Don’t joke about it, Liv, please. I talked to his lawyer this morning, or the man who used to be his lawyer. There’s quite a large estate.”
“Who is he?”
Shannon hesitated. “Fred Eddings.”
“Are you shitting me?” Livvy shrieked. “That gross old man? Is this a sick joke?”
“Shhh.” Shannon looked around nervously. People at nearby tables were staring. She’d seen two women who worked at the hospital come in to pick up a to-go order. They’d nodded politely to each other.
Livvy leaned across the table, her voice an angry whisper. “Mom? Talk to me.”
“It was the last summer I worked at the Saint. As a lifeguard. He asked me to meet with him, about a new job. At his house. Like the little idiot I was, I went. He, um…” Shannon found herself tearing up again. She pushed her plate of food away and tossed money onto the table. “I can’t do this in here. People are watching. It’s a small town…”
“You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” Livvy stood up. She stopped to speak to their server, and Shannon followed her out of the café. “Where did you park?”
Shannon pointed to her car, which was parked at the marina lot across the street.
They got in the car and Shannon rolled the windows down, gulping in the warm, humid air.
She turned in her seat, cupped Olivia’s face between the palms of her hands. “I’m so sorry, baby. About all of it. Can you understand?”
“You’re saying, what? He raped you?”
“I never allowed myself to call it that, because I didn’t want to be a rape victim. I just blocked it all out, wouldn’t let myself think about it. But yes, that’s what it amounted to. I was only nineteen years old. He was in his sixties. His sons were older than me. And he was the owner of the resort. Afterward, he told me if I told anyone, he’d make sure I never got another job in Bonaventure County. So I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Traci.”
“And you never went to the police? My God, Mom.”
“It was a different time. Somehow, I thought it was my fault. For being stupid enough to go to his house, for drinking the martini he offered me. I was so ashamed, Liv.”
“Fucker,” Livvy said fiercely, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
Shannon put a finger across her daughter’s lips. “Hush. It was a long time ago. It’s over and done with.”
“I can’t believe you never told me,” Livvy said. “Did Granny know?”
“Nobody knew. When I found out I was pregnant, I went to him, and I told him he had to help me out, or I would tell his wife.”
“Damn, Mom! You were, like, a blackmailer.”
“No. I was a terrified, pregnant nineteen-year-old.”
“You never thought of getting an abortion? I mean, it was legal then, right?”
“Yes, but I never even considered it. Anyway, the other reason I didn’t tell anyone was that the cash settlement he gave me was conditional on my signing an NDA.”
“It couldn’t have been that much money,” Livvy said bitterly. “It’s not like we lived it up, buying secondhand cars and shopping for clothes at thrift stores.”
“I didn’t ask for much.”
“How did the NDA happen?” Livvy asked.
“His lawyer was an old friend. He told the guy he’d had a one-time ‘fling’ with a girl who was now looking for a payday. I never saw the old man again. But when I met the lawyer, who actually seemed like a decent guy, I told him the real story, and I think he believed me.”
Olivia turned that over in her mind for a minute. Shannon knew her daughter so well, she could almost see the wheels turning in her head.
“The lawyer you met with this morning who told you about my alleged inheritance—is this the same guy who made you sign that NDA way back when? Why would you trust him?”
“Who else was I going to trust?”
Shannon repeated what Andy Plankenhorn had told her about Fred Eddings’s will, and how the new attorney Ric Eddings had hired to rewrite the original will had inadvertently used language that would divide the old man’s estate between his living heirs—which would include the daughter nobody knew he’d fathered.
“Mr. Plankenhorn didn’t have to reach out to me. The first thing he told me when he called today was how badly he’d always felt about the way the old man treated me. And I believe him. He’s a decent man.”
“Okay, I get that you trust him. But what exactly does any of this mean?” Livvy asked.
“He didn’t go into a lot of details, but it looks like you might inherit a portion of your father’s estate that would include—”
“Don’t call him that,” Livvy said sharply. “He was no father to me. He raped you, knocked you up, fired you, and abandoned both of us.”
“Yes,” Shannon said, her voice sounding calmer than she felt. It was hot out and her sweaty legs were sticking to the car’s vinyl upholstery. She rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioner.
“Yes, he did all that. For years, I wouldn’t say his name out loud. And now you know why I was so panic-stricken when you took the job at the Saint. Ric Eddings is as bad as his old man. And this might sound crazy, but what if someone recognized a resemblance to Fred Eddings?”
“That’s nuts,” Livvy said. “There’s a huge portrait of him hanging in the hotel lobby. Lit up like some kind of shrine. I see his face every day, and I look nothing like him. You hear me? Nothing!” Livvy’s face was red and she was shouting again.
“You don’t. You’re right. You look like my people. Not his.” Shannon managed a weak smile. “We have the same weird-looking toes, right?”
“Monkey toes,” Livvy said with a nod. “That’s what Granny used to call them.”
“Same mole on your chin as me. Same annoying cowlick.”
“And I got Granny’s scary unibrow, which you didn’t. Thanks for nothing, by the way.”
“We won’t call him your father,” Shannon said, her voice low and soothing. “You don’t ever have to say his name. We can refer to him as the sperm donor.”
“Eeewww.”
“Olivia,” Shannon said, her tone serious. “You’re nearly the same age now that I was when you were conceived. I had to grow up fast after that happened, because I had someone I was responsible for. But you’re so much more mature and responsible than I was at that age.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“And you’re going to have a lot thrown at you in the coming weeks and months. Ric Eddings is not going to hand over half of his inheritance to you without a fight.”
Livvy stared out the window at the boats coming and going in the marina, at sailboats and yachts and people unloading gear from dock boxes.
“Mom, what if I don’t want their money? What if I don’t want to fight? How many times did you tell me how awful the Eddingses were?”
Shannon had thought long and hard about this topic, ever since she’d gotten the phone call from Andy Plankenhorn.
“Because, Livvy, if you don’t take the money, Ric Eddings wins. And the old man, even though he’s dead now? He wins too. But if you do inherit, that money has the power to change your life, in a good way. Remember, I made the old man pay for my nursing school. That allowed me to have a career, a good one, helping other people. His money paid off Granny’s house note, so you and I could have a safe place to live. Otherwise, I don’t know where we’d have ended up. I don’t have to tell you what a struggle it’s been for us all these years, because you’ve lived it. You went out and got a job at the doughnut shop when you were only fifteen, drove the same kind of crappy cars I always drove. But now, if you want, you can pay off those school loans. You can go back to college, any college you want, and not worry about being buried under crippling debt.”
Livvy was shaking her head with that oh-so-familiar stubborn set to her jaw.
“I know you claim to like that dorm you’re living in,” Shannon went on. “But maybe you could buy a house of your own. Think of it, Liv.”
Her daughter’s eyes widened. “You really think it might be that much money? For real?”
“Probably. And the big thing—the most important thing? People—and it’s mostly the ones who’ve never had any—they say money can’t buy happiness. But you know what it can buy? Choices. The choice to be who and what you want. And maybe, if it’s as much money as I think it will be, you can help out other people, and make a difference in their lives too.”
Livvy did a little golf clap. “Nice speech, Mom. Did you practice that on the way over here?”
“Repeatedly. Will you think about it, please? Mr. Plankenhorn wants to have a meeting with you and Traci.”
“Mrs. E? Why?”
“Because whatever happens with the old man’s will directly affects her and the Saint. She’s going to need you to be on her side.”
“Are you on her side? I thought you guys were frenemies.”
Shannon winced. “That was all on me. I’ve wasted half my life hating Traci for something she had nothing to do with. Another thing the old man took from me. My best friend. But we’re good now.”
Livvy tilted her head, and in the afternoon light, Shannon thought she saw a little of herself at that age. Stubborn, willful, and hopefully, brave.
She reached out her arms, and this time, Livvy allowed herself to be embraced.