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“Listen, Clara.” Amelia turned and faced her little sister, gripping the girl’s delicate shoulders firmly. “We don’t think Dad left us.”
Her blue eyes grew wide. “You think Mom—Nora—left him?”
Megan sighed and shook her head. “No. They were madly in love. It was a volatile love affair, theirs.”
“How so?” Clara’s face fell back into a skeptical expression, but she uncrossed her arms. In tandem, the three resumed their slow walk back along the cove and toward the harbor.
“They fought, and they made up all the time. I think Mom’s mood swings hit an all-time high when we were teenagers. But Dad knew how to bring her back down to earth without placating her or excusing her behavior. Still, he was no pushover. When they fought, you could hear it clear up to the lighthouse. It’s no wonder that’s where he went when we went to Arizona.”
“About that,” Clara interrupted. “Why go? Why not just stay here and lie low?”
“Mom wanted to hide Kate, and it would be suspicious if Megan and I were roaming around town without our big sister. We went everywhere together, and Mom wasn’t stupid.”
“But why was she so mortified? Teenage pregnancy isn’t that rare,” Clara argued, sucking down the dregs of her by-now watered-down tea.
“In 1992, teen pregnancy was still a scandal. I mean it still is, right?” It was Megan who spoke this time. Ever the realist.
“And besides,” Amelia added more softly. “We sort of had a reputation to uphold.”
“What reputation?” Clara asked.
“Mom and Dad had just gotten situated with The Bungalows. They had joined the country club. Things were going well for them financially. Better than they ever had, actually. Mom couldn’t stand to lose that, you know?”
Clara seemed to mull it over. “She saw herself as a glamor girl?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Amelia answered, deep in thought. “She was gritty, you know? She didn’t mind if anyone saw her with a little dirt beneath her fingernails. She was happy for people to see her helping Dad carry a defunct toilet to the barn, water splashing on her overalls.” Amelia and Megan laughed together at the memory, but Clara didn’t know it.
“She wasn’t embarrassed by any of that, but she was embarrassed that Kate got pregnant?”
Amelia glanced at Clara. “I think it was a combination of factors. When Kate got pregnant, it haunted Mom. She went quiet on us. And on Dad. He thought Kate could raise you, you know.”
“He did?”
“Oh yeah,” Megan joined in. “He thought everything could stay the same and that we’d just grow into this big happy family.”
“So, they disagreed?” Clara wondered aloud.
“Definitely. The whole mess was why it was easy for Mom to tell us that he left. She knew that we knew they were at odds over the decision.” Megan kicked a mound of sand from her path as she recounted the same thing Amelia knew to be true.
Clara slowed. “So why did Mom disagree? Just because she didn’t want her teenage daughter to be a young mother?”
“It was deeper than that. More... personal,” Megan replied. Amelia shot her a look.
“You think?” Amelia asked now, surprised at Megan’s insight.
They walked farther north along the lake while the sun reached its peak high above them and leisurely began its lazy summer descent.
“I’m already hungry,” Amelia complained. “Should we grab a seat at the Village?”
“I’m not in the mood for Italian,” Megan replied.
“What about the deli?” Amelia suggested.
Clara shook her head. “There’s a new place there we could try. Green Birch Bistro.”
***
Green Birch Bistro was a perfect lunch spot if ever there was one. And if the setting didn’t prove as much, the long wait certainly did. But the sisters had nowhere to be, at least not at that moment, and so they accepted a plastic buzzer and took the hostess’s advice to stroll down to the lake, a short jaunt from the restaurant’s patio.
“How did we not know about this place? It’s great.” It occurred to Amelia that she had some exploring to do. Her hometown had changed more than she had.
Soon enough, the sisters were seated on a quaint, quasi-private patio, which jutted from the back of the restaurant onto a narrow deck that hovered past the sea wall, encroaching on the beach by some yards.
Amelia figured it was as good a time as any to get back to solving the family mystery. She hadn’t heard from Michael yet, who had appointments that morning but promised to use his spare time for digging around, but Amelia could at least dig through the recesses of her memory and even pull in her sisters, who might help alight on a clue they’d previously overlooked.
Once their drinks were served, she pulled the watch from her pocket and laid it out in the center of the table. “That,” Amelia pointed to it, “is what Mom left me in the will. Remember?”
Megan and Clara nodded, and Megan said, “Yes.” But their blank looks suggested they were not thinking what Amelia was.
“Why would she include it in the will if she didn’t have it?” Amelia took a blue packet from the sweetener dish, tore it, and tapped it into her iced tea, stirring ruthlessly. All the coffee and tea in the world wouldn’t help her with the family puzzle, and surely she’d regret the caffeine buzz come evening when it was time to quiet her mind, but for now she needed every little bit of energy she could borrow. The problem of where their dad went was starting to feel somehow relevant. Crucial. Urgent, even. Though Amelia didn’t know why.
“Maybe she thought she had it,” Clara offered, shrugging and pulling her lemon wedge from the lip of her glass before setting it on the table.
“I’ll take that.” Amelia reached across and plucked the slice of citrus, squeezing it into her glass. “Good point, Clara.”
“No way,” Megan inserted. She stared across at the water, a darkness falling across her features. “Even if Mom was losing it, she knew exactly what she had possession of and exactly what she did not have possession of.”
Amelia frowned. “That’s quite an assumption.”
“No. It’s reality. Kate and I discussed the will last weekend when she was going through the garden shed. In the paperwork Michael read to us, Mom left Kate twenty-three flowerpots. Twenty-three. She wrote that thing years ago, so why be so specific?”
“Did Kate find twenty-three flowerpots?” Amelia asked, unused to being the skeptic of the group.
Megan simply grinned. “Exactly.”
“What about everything else in there?” Clara asked.
Amelia took a long swig of her tea. “What do you mean?”
“Have each of you claimed the things she left you?” Sadness peeked through Clara’s innocent question. The hurt of her exclusion from the will, no doubt. Amelia wanted to wrap the little blonde in a big blanket, carry her to the house on the harbor and give it all to her. None of those silly possessions mattered to Amelia. She wasn’t the sort to keep mementos, not like Kate or Clara, who could have everything if they wanted it. Amelia was happy to be in charge of running The Bungalows or having a job to do. She was a doer more than a keeper. That was Amelia.
“No,” Megan answered on both their behalf.
Clara was about to take a sip, but stopped, awkwardly extracting the straw from her mouth before protesting. “So, we are more concerned with the properties we got and less concerned with the... what, the trinkets from the estate?” If Amelia didn’t know better, she’d say a look of modest disgust crossed Clara’s face.
She glanced at Megan, who must have shared her offense, because Megan replied, “It’s not like we forgot.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Clara returned her straw to her mouth and took a long pull of water. She seemed to ignore Megan’s defensive response.
Amelia let out a long sigh. “It’s something we need to do, no doubt. And we will. But Mom didn’t only leave Dad’s wristwatch.” She picked up the hardware and turned it in her hand, amazed at its condition.
“That’s true. She left me his wedding band.” Megan’s eyes flashed at Amelia. “Wait a minute.”
A chill ran up Amelia’s spine, sending goosebumps along her arms. “Oh, my Lord.”
The food came, a brief but obnoxious interruption. Amelia feigned appreciation, but as soon as the waiter left, she pressed her hands on the top of the table dramatically.
Megan didn’t touch her food. Clara’s face crumpled into confusion. “What am I missing?” the latter asked.
“Mom wrote the will after you were born. We know that. And if it was after you were born, then obviously it was after Dad disappeared.”
“Left the picture you mean?” Clara added.
“Disappeared,” Megan corrected.
The conversation was heating up, and Clara was about to be left out if she didn’t get on board. Amelia spoke directly to her now. “Clara, if Mom wrote that will knowing that Dad was gone, then why in the world would she leave Megan his wedding band?”
Megan’s face fell. “He must have left it behind.”