Emily was sitting on the porch steps, looking pretty dejected, when Andie got back to the Thompson house. Suddenly Andie realized how important this was to Emily. Now she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t suggest going forward with the loan. What if the boutique Airbnb didn’t work out? Emily would be stuck with a loan she couldn’t repay unless she sold the house. If Andie couldn’t pull this off, she could cost Emily her future. But if Emily didn’t try, she was going to lose the house anyway. Failing at this venture was not an option.
“I brought the loan application for you to look over. Maxi thinks we have a good shot.” It wasn’t totally the truth, but Maxi hadn’t said they didn’t have a good shot, just that they might need something of historical importance. Andie would just have to find that thing.
Emily brightened. “Really?”
They sat side by side on the fresh new wood steps that Shane had repaired and went over the application together.
“They have certain paint colors you have to choose from?” Emily looked back at the house. “I think the house has always been white, but it might be pretty to pick a contrasting trim color.”
“It would make it stand out.”
Emily made a face. “But how much do you think we can get? If I have to bring the mortgage current and pay Mom’s bill at Tall Pines plus get the work done on the house, there might not be enough.”
“Maxi didn’t say how much, but she did say James would push it through. We can get Shane to give us an estimate, and Maxi said James can defer payments. Maybe we can do some of the work ourselves to save money?” Andie suggested. “I’m pretty good with a paint brush.”
Emily smiled. She put the paperwork in her lap and looked at Andie. “Thanks. You know, you’ve been a real friend throughout this. At first I thought you had an ulterior motive, but now I know you’re just a good person.”
Andie’s heart bloomed at the compliment. Emily had hit on something. Andie did love helping. It made her feel good. Maybe that was what had attracted her to antiques in the first place? The act of helping a family sort their loved ones’ items and get the most money for them?
Andie glanced back down at the paperwork in Emily’s lap. “Now we just need to come up with a historical angle for the application.”
“I might be able to help with that. I’ve been doing some research, and the Underground Railroad did have a stop in Lobster Bay.” Emily stood and motioned for Andie to follow onto the porch, where her laptop sat on a small table beside one of the rocking chairs.
“It doesn’t say which houses were part of the railroad, but now, thinking back, I do remember some hushed whispering.” Emily tapped the screen to life and swiveled it toward Andie so she could read the article. “It says that most people didn’t make it known because there was still a lot of resistance here. So it makes sense that maybe my ancestors never talked about it and it didn’t trickle down over the generations.”
Andie started getting excited. “There were only a few houses in town back then. This was one of them.”
“I know, right?” Emily’s eyes twinkled. “There might be something here. I mean, you saw the attic. My relatives never threw anything out.”
“You can say that again.”
Emily leaned back in the rocker and looked up at the ceiling, as if digging back into her memory. “We should go back to that old section of the attic. You know, the place where you found those old quilts you took pictures of. That’s where the oldest things are. Maybe we’ll find something in there.”
The quilts!
Andie checked her email. The reply from Susan Walker left her stunned and elated. She turned to Emily.
“I think I have it. I heard back from my quilt expert. It turns out the quilts might be connected to the Underground Railroad.”
“What? Really?”
“Susan says that they used quilts as a signaling mechanism. They would hang a certain type of quilt on the line to let slaves on the run know that it was safe to stop there.” Andie tilted her phone toward Emily so she could see the email. “Nothing was documented specifically about the quilts, but Susan says from what she has found in her research, the patterns of these quilts and the age could mean they were used as signals.”
Emily looked excited but cautious. “Do you think that would be enough for the bank?”
Andie grabbed the application and pen. “I’m not sure, but I think we should find out.”