Chapter Thirty-Five
It was almost four in the morning when Kit finished reading Miles’s book.
In the last chapter, they were on the lake in a rowboat.
They were old now, in their eighties, and they were floating and talking and laughing softly as they shared a bottle of red wine and reminisced.
It was many years after Kit had been born, and she was off living her own life somewhere.
Maxine and Miles were still loving their rustic life at camp together, still deeply in love, still enjoying life’s small pleasures.
In the very last scene, on a late-winter afternoon, they stood on the back porch and watched a moose lumber across the meadow behind the house, her calf following along and trying to keep up, eerily like Kit herself had done not too long ago.
Miles’s arms wrapped around Maxine, his breath whispered against her cheek, and she raised a hand to caress his face.
His fingers touched the emerald ring she wore on her left ring finger. Kit read the closing line:
“Maxi, my ever-love,” I said as I kissed the hollow of her throat. “Let’s go in and read together by the fire.”
Did anyone’s love story ever really end that way?
Kit wondered. Did anyone stay in love with the same person all their lives, their passion for each other never diminishing, their shared joy unchanged?
Certainly not anyone Kit knew, but Miles’s words throughout the book had been written with such conviction, it made her almost believe it was possible.
Maybe his words could inspire others to believe in everlasting love as well.
Kit thought long and hard before looking for the card with the name and number of Miles’s literary agency. It was time to make the call, if for no other reason than to let them know who she was and what she had.
Three days later, Kit was still thinking about her conversation with Piper Collins, the agent who’d inherited Miles as a client, when she heard Greta’s voice outside the kitchen window, where she stood chatting with Beth.
Kit rapped on the glass and waved. Greta held up her index finger, signaling she’d just be a moment.
By the time Kit unlocked the back door, Beth was on her way to the cabins and Greta was at the foot of the stairs.
“I just stopped over to drop off the items I was keeping for you. I kept forgetting I had this stuff,” Greta said as she came slowly up the back steps.
Kit had to remind herself that Greta would be in her eighties, same as Maxine if she’d been alive. She carried a tote bag with the words One People, One Planet. Please. on the front, a picture of a globe on the back.
“You didn’t have to do that, Greta. I’d have come for them.” Kit held the door open with one hand and reached out with the other to steady the older woman as she reached the top step. “Come in and have some iced tea. It’s warm today.”
“I can’t stay, honey. My grandson has a softball game this afternoon.
” She plunked herself down in one of the kitchen chairs and handed the tote to Kit.
“It’s all in there except the sterling flatware and your great-grandmother’s silver tea set.
That thing is a bear to carry, let me tell you.
I left that in my car because I couldn’t carry it all, so you’ll come out with me when I leave.
I wrote up an inventory when I packed it up to take with me, and that’s in the bag. ”
“You didn’t have to do that, Greta, but thank you.” Kit opened the tote and peeked inside and found a stack of different-size jewelry boxes.
“The small ones are the rings,” Greta told her. “Go on. You should look.”
“Did you already look, Greta?” Kit teased.
“Well, sure. I needed to make sure we got all of it. Besides, I’d seen it all before. Maxine showed me one night I was out here. Told me if anything happened to her, I should take it home with me and hold on to it. I guess she suspected you’d be here one day.”
“And if I hadn’t come?”
Greta considered the question. “I guess I would have given it to Banks. He’d have known what to do with it.”
Kit set the boxes on the kitchen table. She opened the closest one.
Greta leaned forward and pointed excitedly. “I think that was your great-grandmother’s on your great-grandfather’s side. It’s a big diamond, and I’m pretty sure they were the only family around here rich enough to buy something that expensive. But don’t hold me to that.”
“Oh my. It’s lovely. And huge. Abby’s going to want to get her hands on this one.” Kit tried to put it on her ring finger but it was too small. “I’m not going to force it. If it got stuck I’d have to cut it off my hand.” She returned the ring to the box, closed the lid, and set it aside.
“Hi, Greta. I thought I heard your voice.” Abby came into the kitchen and hugged her.
“Just dropping off some pretty things I’ve been keeping safe for your mama,” Greta said.
“Greta’s been keeping the family jewels for us,” Kit explained. “With the house vacant those months after Maxine’s death and then empty at night when I was staying at the inn, and then again when we were all in Pennsylvania, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to leave valuable things here.”
“I thought it was time everything was back where it belonged.” Greta pointed Abby’s attention to the ring box Kit had just closed. “Take a look at that, honey, and tell me what your answer would be if some handsome young man got down on one knee and offered it up.”
Abby’s eyes lit when she opened the lid.
“Oooh! Don’t mind if I do.” She took the ring out and slipped it onto her finger.
“It’s a perfect fit. But I’d say yes to the ring only after some serious questioning.
Like, what are your thoughts on raising another man’s child?
And how do you feel about living in the middle of nowhere in a rustic cabin without running water? ”
“The cabins have running water, Abby,” Kit reminded her.
“It’s a test, Mom. If someone loved me the right way, he’d say, ‘I’d live anywhere with you, Abigail Clark.’ See?”
“Got it. And then you’d assure him our cabins did have water and flushing toilets, right?”
“Of course.” Abby peeked into the bag on the table. “Oooh, what’s in that one?”
“Well, go ahead and look.” Greta winked at Kit, who figured she’d enjoy watching Abby’s joy of discovery as much as she’d enjoy her own.
“Oh, so pretty. Look, Mom.” Abby handed the box over without trying on the ring inside.
“That was your grandmother Meadows’s wedding ring. I never saw her wear another piece of jewelry. Just that one wide gold band,” Greta told them.
“Beth should be here for this.” The ring was too wide to fit into the slot in the box, so it fell onto the table.
“I’ll call her.” Abby went to get her phone and moments later returned to the kitchen. “She’s on her way. I said we’d time her.”
It didn’t take long.
“Did someone say jewelry?” Beth panted as she came in through the back door. To Abby, she said, “Don’t let me forget to go back down and lock up cabin two.”
“I’ll lock it when Benny gets up from his nap. He likes to walk down there after he has his wake-up snack.” Abby moved over one seat to give her chair to Beth. “Look what Greta’s brought us.”
Beth oohed and aahed over the rings, then held out her hand for the next item that Greta removed from the bag.
“Oh, this is lovely. I wonder whose watch this was?” she said as she turned the thin gold band around in her hand.
“It’s so delicate and dainty,” Abby exclaimed after Beth passed the watch to her. “Look how tiny the wrist was.”
“Turn it over. Maybe there are initials on the back,” Kit suggested.
Abby turned the watch to the light, twisting it in several directions. “There is something written but I can’t read it.” She handed it to her mother. “See, there are a few missing letters.”
“I can’t read it, either. Beth, want to take a shot at this?” Kit handed the watch to her sister.
Beth stared at the watch. “Maybe an R and a C, but I can’t read the others. Maybe a jeweler could read it with a loupe. It looks like the letters are worn away.”
“Maybe it belonged to Tolerance,” Abby suggested.
“Maybe a gift from her parents. Her husband was just back from the Civil War when they were married, so I doubt he was wealthy enough to buy something like that, but maybe her father was,” Kit pointed out.
“So we’ll have a jeweler look at that anyway.” Beth put it in the middle of the table. “We should have each piece appraised so we know how much to insure it for.”
“Good point. There is insurance on the house, but I don’t know about the contents. I’ll check with Banks,” Kit said. “And I should ask him if he knows what kind of insurance there is on the camp. Property and liability. Maybe he knows who Maxine’s agent was.”
There were a number of silver bracelets. Greta told them, “Those were Maxine’s. She loved silver.”
Beth pulled a long box from Greta’s bag. She opened it to find a heavy gold necklace that she immediately put around her neck. The size and weight of it had them all speechless.
Finally, Abby reached for it and said, “Mom, I bet we could finance most of the renovations on the camp if you sold this, or we could buy a fleet of new cars, given the price of gold these days.”
“With the royalties from Miles’s books and his movies, we won’t have to sell any of it.” Kit was next in line to handle the necklace.
“Royalties?” Abby’s head shot up.
“A gift from Miles to Maxine, and thereby to me.”
“Did I hear you say, ‘Thank you, Miles’?” Beth kicked Kit lightly under the table.
Kit nodded. “Thank you, Miles. Thanks to you, the Camp in the Meadows will rise from the ashes.”
“Well, except for his cabin,” Beth pointed out.
“Yeah, those ashes are long gone,” Abby said. “I have to say, those Meadows ladies had some pretty fancy taste for women who lived in the sticks.”
“Well, we know someone loved to entertain by the size of the dining room table. And judging by all the different sets of china and crystal, I’d say someone liked to dazzle her guests.”