Chapter Two #2
A lovely room, really, she thought. Roomy, good natural light, a view of the side gardens. A big, beautiful old desk and a good leather desk chair, and a second for visitors. Shelves holding books, mementos, photographs. None of which she’d had the heart to touch.
And the painting of the manor with her father’s signature in the corner.
How often, she wondered, had Collin looked at that painting and thought about their grandmother’s cruelty? Separating orphaned infants, demanding her own daughter claim the child she chose to keep as her own.
Patricia Poole had never paid a price for that cruelty. Maybe her daughter paid it, locked in a world of her own delusions.
But if any answer to the rings lay with either of them, they were beyond her reach.
So she’d start with Collin himself.
She sat at his desk, and did what she hadn’t pushed herself to do before. She used the passcode Trey’s father had given her and opened the computer.
When Cleo came in, she carried a couple of boxes.
“I thought there might be some papers that should go to Deuce and the legal team. Or other things you might want to pass through them.”
“Bound to be. The desk file drawers are full of paper files.”
“Then I’ll start there.”
“He paid bills here. And kept perfect records. I’ve got all his passwords.” She tapped the sheet she’d taken out of the middle drawer. “I put the list there so it’d be handy whenever I made myself do this.”
Cleo sat on the floor, opened the deep file drawer. “Everything labeled and in alpha order. I’ll put what it seems like you wouldn’t need in a box for the Doyles to vet.”
“I think I’m going to print out his records and do the same with those because we’ll need to wipe the hard drive. We should donate the computer. Neither of us can use it.”
“Here’s a thought on that. Wipe the hard drive, yeah, but maybe set up the computer in one of the sitting rooms upstairs. Like a guest office. Something Trey or Owen, or one of the family on a visit, could use if they have a need for a desktop.”
Lips pursed, Sonya nodded. “Taking ownership and making a purpose for another room. Good idea.”
“But that desk stays here. It’s beautiful. If I do use this room and you want to move your dad’s painting—”
“No, I’d like it to stay here. I’ve got correspondence on here, too. Emails, business, family—and that’s often one and the same, obviously. He kept a calendar on here, too. Birthdays, anniversaries.”
As she scanned, Sonya’s heart gave a quick lurch.
“Cleo, he has my birthday on here.”
“He thought of you.”
“He did. Mom’s birthday’s here. Her and Dad’s anniversary. He thought of all of us.”
“How does that feel?”
After taking a moment, she smiled. “Good. It feels good.”
“Correct answer. Son, I’m keeping the files on house insurance, truck info, appliances, and all that. But he’s got files on his health insurance, doctors, dentist, which I’ll put in the box.”
“Yes. Cleo, he has a file on me.”
“On you?”
“My schools, from kindergarten on, the house we shared our senior year of college, my degree, internship, employment. My duplex in Boston. He’s even got some of the accounts I worked on. My engagement announcement. When I resigned from By Design, when I started my company.”
Her heart broke a little when she saw his scribbled note.
“He’s got a note here, Cleo. Start the new year off fresh. Contact Sonya. He died before he could start fresh.”
“And thought of you,” Cleo repeated. “Kept track of you, and it doesn’t feel intrusive.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m just sorry it all happened the way it did. He wasn’t alone. Not just because of ghosts. But he had the Doyles. He always had the Doyles.”
“But he could have had you, and your mom.”
“Yes.”
“He kept track of you, and he left all this to you not just because you were his twin’s daughter, but I think because he liked what he saw. He trusted you.”
“He’s got other notes here and there. My engagement announcement. He adds: Could and should do better.”
Cleo’s laugh was sharp and wicked. “Points for Collin.”
“When I started Visual Art by Sonya? He’s written Going places.”
“He got that right, too.”
“I feel, doing this, seeing this, I’m getting to know him a little. The thing is, Cleo?” She swiveled in the chair to look down at her friend. “We’d have liked him. Me, Mom, you. We’d have liked him.”
“Son, we do like him.”
“You’re right. Okay.” She let out a breath, swiveled back. “Okay. Let’s keep going.”
They went through another file, then another as time ticked away. When it struck her, Sonya stopped, sat back.
“We haven’t heard from Clover since we started. We’re going through her son’s things, through his life, really, file by file.”
It came from the music room, from the old Victrola.
Cleo lifted a finger.
“I know that one. My grand-mère sings it. ‘God Bless the Child.’ It’s Billie Holiday. If you ask me, she’s talking about Collin, and I guess your dad. But you, too, Son.”
“But she doesn’t want to be right in here while we do this. And that’s okay. I keep getting a clearer, better picture of him, and doing this adds to it. This file here? It’s a list of nonprofits he gave to annually. We’re going to keep that going.”
They spent nearly two hours at it, reading, printing, separating, boxing.
“Even though we’re keeping it, I’m going to wipe the hard drive. Meanwhile, the shelves. You should go over all that, see what you want to keep, if anything.”
“I’ll Cleo it up some, maybe shift some things to other rooms. But I’m loving that brass sextant, and that old time and tide clock. The truth is, I’ve got a fondness for him, and I’ll like having things that he liked in here.”
Clover went with Hall & Oates and upbeat with “You Make My Dreams.”
Cleo patted the phone in her pocket. “Well, he sure helped make mine come true.”
Sonya put an arm around Cleo’s shoulders, and felt, for a moment, all three of them connected.
“I’ve got another idea. The cabinet there.”
“It’s wonderful. I’d use it unless you want it somewhere else.”
“No, it’s perfect in here, but right now it’s full of photo boxes, and they’re full of photos or newspaper clippings, things he printed out from articles. I haven’t gone through them all yet. We’ll store them somewhere else for now. But later?”
Sonya went to the tall, beautifully carved cabinet, opened both its doors. She took out a box at random, set it on the desk.
“A lot of snapshots, and some more formal portraits. Spans decades and generations, from what I can tell.”
“I bet he planned to organize all of them by category at some point.” Lifting her hands, Cleo spread her fingers. “Who doesn’t have a project like that waiting for the time and the mood?”
“Exactly. More photos stored in the attic. So we could make a gallery. Go through them, pull out the best, go back as far as we have. A Poole family and friends photo gallery.”
“I’m liking that idea.”
Green eyes flashed determination with some defiance mixed in.
“And, when the time comes, we use the Gold Room. After we evict Dobbs, I still wouldn’t want to use that room for guests.
It’s just … I just don’t. But a room, that room, dedicated to photos, and you know we’ll find tintypes, and probably miniature portraits.
If there are any family members we can’t find, maybe we can reproduce portraits. ”
“I say, this is genius. I’d white sage the room first. Three times. Then we clean it out. Get whatever we want in there out of storage, and make a gallery. And we turn the dark to light.”
“I know he didn’t live here, but he was born here. I’m going to put up some pictures of my father, as a little boy, and one of my parents’ wedding photos.”
“More genius,” Cleo began, even as Clover blasted out Tina Turner.
You’re simply the best.
“Let’s take a few of the boxes into the dining room. Big table.” Sonya pulled another out. “We’ll pour some wine, sort through. The ones we think we might use go in one box. Ones we won’t, the other.”
“I’m for that, especially the wine. We won’t recognize everyone, though.”
“Unsure, first box. Owen may know, or Deuce or one of the older Poole cousins.”
“This is a plan, a very solid plan. And it’s one more way to turn what she pulled last night on its ass.”
By the time the men arrived, Sonya and Cleo had photos spread out, others in designated boxes, and had just poured a second glass of wine.
“What’s all this?” Trey asked.
“Sonya’s genius idea. Once we kick Dobbs back to hell, we’re going to do a Poole Family and Friends Gallery in the Gold Room.”
“Look at this, Trey.” Sonya pulled one out of the gallery box. “It’s your dad with Collin, at, I’m guessing, late teens or early twenties. You look so much like him. They’re at the beach somewhere.”
“Couple of buff studs,” Cleo added as Trey grinned over the photo of Collin and Deuce wearing swim trunks and standing on the sand in front of the ocean.
“They used to talk about this. This has to be when they were in college, and drove down one summer to—I think—the Outer Banks. They tried to learn how to surf, and failed, but had a hell of a good time.”
“I guess you might not have a clue, yet, as to how many photos are socked away in this house.” Owen scanned what was spread around the big table. “How far back are you going?”
“Back to Arthur Poole.”
Now Owen scratched his jaw. “You do realize they didn’t have cameras back then?”
“They did miniatures, and I bet we’ll find some. Then you have tintypes. But we’re going to need your help to put names with faces.”
He gave Sonya a shrug. “I’ll help where I can, but not until I eat. We got lobster rolls.”
“Excellent choice.” Cleo rose. “We should eat on the deck. What did you get to go with them?”
“Potato salad,” Trey told her, “coleslaw, and at our favorite chef’s insistence, lemon bars.”
“Bree knows what she knows.” Cleo patted Trey’s cheek as she moved by. “Where’s the rest of our pooch family?”
“They’re all outside. Including the cat.” Since he didn’t intend to settle on a cheek pat, Owen pulled her in, took her mouth.