Chapter Thirty-Three
Kit stood to remove the lid and set it aside, not daring to guess what might be within.
Maxine had been one to hide odd things in strange places.
Whatever it was, it was wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
She untied it and took the contents out and placed it on the desk.
She undid the paper and looked at what was lying beneath.
She stared at what appeared to be a ream of paper.
When she realized what she was looking at, her hand flew to her mouth.
A Cabin in the Woods: A Love Story by Miles David Easton.
“Oh my God,” she heard herself say. “Oh my . . . oh.”
She lifted the manuscript and, holding it to her chest, began to sob.
Kit couldn’t stop staring at the paper, which had turned pale yellow with fifty-five years of age. Same as Kit. Its very presence in Banks’s office was a huge question mark.
She opened the door, still holding the precious manuscript, and called for Banks. He was there in a flash—as much a flash as a man in his eighties could manage—and together they returned to his office.
“How is this here?” she asked. “I thought it went down on the plane with Miles.”
It had only vaguely occurred to her that he was her father.
“Yes, it’s quite a shock, isn’t it? When Maxine brought it in to me, I almost had a heart attack. I said, ‘Do you have any idea what this is?’”
“Did she?”
“Only in that it was a love letter to her from Miles, his fictional version of what their life would be together, the two of them, and you, at the camp.” Once again, Banks sat in the leather chair behind his desk, and once again, he was telling Kit a story.
“Miles was planning on bringing the manuscript with him when he came back to Maine, but as he tells Maxine in his letter—that’s in the box there—he decided he wanted her to read it before he arrived so they could talk about it when he got here.
He never made it, of course, but the package was delivered three days after his plane went down. ”
“And she had it all these years?”
“She did.”
“She never told anyone?”
“Not as far as I know. The world assumed that his last book, his final book, had been destroyed in the plane crash.”
“Why . . .”
“Why would she keep it to herself? Because she thought it was too private, too personal to share. It was their story, and with Miles gone, she wanted to keep their story to herself. She didn’t want anyone to read it.”
“Did you read it?”
“I did not.”
Of course he wouldn’t have, without Maxine’s express permission.
“She left it with me to give to you, but only if you were somehow able to figure things out on your own. I think in her heart, she hoped you’d want to stay and maintain the camp.”
He pointed to the box. “The name and number of Miles’s agent are in the box.
I believe his original agent is gone now, but there’s someone there who will help you.
The manuscript will bring in a huge advance, if you decide to sell it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it went to auction.
But that’s up to you. Whatever you want to do with it now is your business. But my advice? Call him.”
“I don’t know. If she didn’t want her story out there, maybe I shouldn’t tell anyone.”
“She didn’t want the story told while she was alive. She considered that you’d want to sell it, and she was fine with that. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left it for you.”
“What else would she have done with it?”
“She could have left it here, in our vault, where it’s been for the past three years. She brought it with her when she came in to have her final will written. Believe me, I was as surprised when I realized what it was as you were just now.”
“Maxine was full of secrets,” she said, her head still spinning.
“Maybe this is the last of them. We can only hope.” He lifted his hands in a who could know gesture and smiled. “Then again, knowing Maxine . . .”
Kit sat in her car for twenty minutes before engaging the engine, feeling blindsided by Maxine and her mother once again.
She drove home slowly, and was grateful no one was in the house when she got there.
She’d been given a lot to think about. So much tragedy, so much heartache.
It seemed Maxine had been prone to making questionable decisions when she was upset, from not burying her baby to keeping the truth from Miles to giving her second child—Kit—to her sister, and then demanding her back, only to later admit she was better off being raised by Barbie.
It was so hard not to judge any of them—Maxine, Barbie, Ed, even Banks for his involvement in writing the adoption agreement specifying that Maxine was not to see her child.
Then again, Maxine had been unstable. And there was Barbie, who’d let Kit believe that she was her mother, that she had no siblings, no living relatives.
Kit’s mind bounced back and forth between the sisters, trying to reconcile the fact they’d both been right, and they’d both been wrong.
There was so much information crashing around inside Kit’s head, she developed a migraine.
She took the box holding the manuscript and carried it upstairs to her room.
It was all so crazy and messy, so much mystery, so many bad decisions and so few good ones, and for Maxine, so much tragedy and loss.
Kit toed off her shoes and sat on the bed. She carefully lifted the manuscript from the box. Plumping the pillows against the headboard, she sat back and began to read.
Between pages twelve and thirteen, she found an envelope with Maxine’s name written in very precise cursive. Kit opened the envelope and began to read:
My most darling adorable Maxi,
By the time you are reading this, I will be on my way home to you . . .