If Imogene’s son, Edmund Thorne, worked with my grandmother, I wanted to know more about what Grandma Daisy and Edmund were working on. After I left the café, I decided to go to the source—Grandma Daisy. The temporary city offices were in an old Victorian house that was similar to Charming Books in size. The house was also on River Street, but closer to the livery where the village carriage drivers began their workdays.
River Street was the longest road in the village. It was also the main way in and out of Cascade Springs. The road was so long, in fact, it traveled through Cascade Springs, through the neighboring village of Camden, and right into Niagara Falls. As it drew closer to Niagara Falls, the road widened and traffic picked up.
My grandmother felt very strongly that the seat of village government needed to stay as close to the village hall as possible. The closest place that wasn’t occupied either by a resident or a business was the narrow Victorian home. It was brown with black trim. Most of the shutters were missing, and the front door looked like it could be breached with just a gentle nudge.
Grandma Daisy turned a blind eye to all these “minor” issues, as she’d called them, and set up shop there.
As I reached the house, the front door opened and the delivery man, Hank, stepped out. “Violet!” He grinned at me. “Coming to check on your grandmother? I can say that she is hard at work inside.” He clipped his package scanner to his work belt. “I have never in my life seen a person who works as hard as her. Is it true that she thinks she can bring the village hall back?”
I laughed. “It’s true, and don’t you go telling her anything different. I can assure you that will not go over well with Grandma Daisy.”
“I never would!” he said cheerily. “I’m sorry to hear about all that fuss at your wedding reception. I was at the ceremony but missed the reception. Too many packages to deliver right before the holidays, you know? I heard about it from the rumor mill.”
I nodded. “The rumor mill is strong in Cascade Springs.”
He laughed. “Well, I had better be off. So many packages to deliver! It seems everyone did their Christmas and Hanukkah shopping online this year.” He waved good-bye and jogged to his van parked just up the road.
When I walked into the house, my grandmother personally came out to greet me at the door. She sat at a metal desk with blueprints spread out in front of her. Her glasses hung on the tip of her nose, and her silver bob framed her face.
My grandmother lost her secretary in the spring and had yet to replace her. Honestly, I would be surprised if she did replace her. Grandma Daisy liked to do everything herself, so not having a right-hand person to delegate to was a plus in her eyes.
At the wedding, my grandmother had looked like a silver siren in her suit and scarf, but now she was back to her typical attire of jeans and a sweatshirt. Clearly, I’d gotten my fashion sense from my grandmother. A fuzzy, snowflake-patterned scarf was wrapped around her neck. She gave me a hug. “There’s my girl! What a special honor that you would stop by. Who’s at the shop?”
“I asked Charles to come in for the day, so I could take care of few things,” I said.
“Charles!” Grandma Daisy put her hands on her hips. “Violet, you know by calling him in, you’re just encouraging his crush on me, don’t you?”
“Umm,” I said.
Grandma Daisy groaned. “So you asked Charles to help so you could wander around the village and get a little snooping in.”
“I don’t snoop,” I said defensively.
Grandma Daisy laughed. “Oh, all right. We won’t call it snooping. That’s far too childish anyway for what the essence is making you do. Any word from the books?”
“Grandma, someone will hear you,” I whispered.
“I’m the only one here. It’s Christmas week. Most of the staff took the week off, and the rest are working from home.”
“Shouldn’t you take some time off too? I don’t think you have taken a day off since you were elected.”
“A mayor never rests, especially now that we have such a massive project ahead of us.” Her eyes glowed.
There were very few things that my grandmother loved more than a massive project. When I first moved back, it was just as much of an adjustment for her as it was for me. I became the Caretaker of the tree and the shop. She’d passed on the torch, so to speak. In doing that though, the shop’s essence no longer talked to her. She started to feel obsolete, which did not sit well with Grandma Daisy. Naturally, to remedy that, she decided to run for public office.
Grandma Daisy patted her hand on the desktop. “We have a lot of work to do, but if all goes well, the village hall will be put back together again like Humpty Dumpty.”
“I’m pretty sure the poem said Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again.”
“Bah, that’s all right. You know what I mean.”
I set the box of lemon madeleines that Lacey had given me on her desk next to the blueprints.
“Are those my favorite cookies?” she asked. “I can smell the lemon from here.” She opened the box and popped an entire treat into her mouth.
“Grandma, you need to be careful. You could choke on that. Just take one bite at a time.”
“I’m fine,” she said as she chewed on her madeleine. “And these are amazing. I don’t know how Adrien does it. I’ve tried to bake them so many times, and they’ve never come out quite like this.” She swallowed. “It’s very kind of you to bring me these, Violet, but I can tell that you are here to ask me something.”
“Why do you say that?” I sat perched on the edge of the desk, taking care not to sit on the blueprint.
“Because you’re shifting from foot to foot and keep glancing out the window like you have somewhere else you need to be. I’m not offended, even though I am your grandmother.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d like to be.” I shook my head. “But I am here to ask you something.”
She grinned and took another madeleine from the box. “See? Told you.” She took a bite this time, instead of devouring it all at once. She did listen to me… Sometimes.
“Does Edmund Thorne work for the village?”
“Sure. The village contracted his private company to help rebuild the village hall. Why do you ask?”
I hadn’t seen my grandmother since the wedding, so I quickly filled her in on Imogene’s visit and what I’d learned from Adrien just moments ago.
“I had no idea that Edmund and Adrien were cousins. Neither of them has ever mentioned it.”
“They aren’t close,” I said.
“Hmmm, still seems like it would come up sometime. This is a very tiny village.”
I didn’t argue with her on that point because I felt the same way.
“As for Edmund, you’re in luck. He will be here any minute. I was just going to go over the latest plans from the architect with him to see if they will work for the hall. Edmund has a good eye, and he will catch anything that the architect or I missed.”
The front door of the house opened and a tall man with blond, curly hair and a beard walked in. I guessed he was somewhere close to fifty years old. He wore a navy pea coat over a dark gray suit. The suit stood out because no one in village government wore suits. My grandmother was the perfect example of this.
“Edmund!” Grandma Daisy said. “I’m so glad you’re here. Have you met my granddaughter, Violet?”
Edmund gave me a polite smile. “I haven’t had the pleasure. You’re the one who just got married. Daisy often spoke about your wedding in our meetings. Congratulations.”
I thanked him.
Grandma Daisy chuckled. “Other than the restoration of the village hall, it was the biggest event of the year. However, now that the wedding is over, I can give my full attention to the restoration.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Edmund said. “I know everyone is eager to get the project going. You did an amazing job raising money for the restoration. Even if we are not able to fit everything on your punch list into the budget, I am confident that we will make the building safe and stable to use again.”
“Oh, I will get everything on my punch list,” Grandma Daisy said. “I always do.”
“You will need to raise another two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Oh, is that all?” my grandmother asked.
I shook my head. Sometimes I really wished I had my grandmother’s confidence.
“I thought it was one million more,” I said.
Grandma Daisy smiled like Emerson when he knew he was getting away with something. “I had a very successful trip to New York City and was able to raise eight hundred thousand from some very well-to-do donors.”
I gawked at her. “Grandma Daisy, that’s amazing.”
“Isn’t it, though?” She beamed and then turned back to Edmund. “Now before we get started, Violet needs to talk to you.”
Edmund looked to me. “Can I help you with something?”
“Maybe. I met your mother yesterday. She stopped by Charming Books.”
He nodded. “Yes, I heard about that visit both from my mother and from the police. I can assure you she’s harmless.”
“She threw her cane at me.”
“She has a short temper, but you weren’t in any real danger.”
Tell that to my vase and wedding flowers. Rather than argue, I asked, “Did you hear about the death of your mother’s friend, Roma Winterbourne?”
“Yes, I heard about that as well from both my mother and the police. I can promise you that my mother has nothing to do with it. The death was ruled an accident. It’s a tragedy, but I’m not sure why the police are still looking into it.”
“It’s because your mother claimed that Roma stole her book, and after Roma died, she accused me of stealing it or buying it from Roma.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “That book. I’ve lived my entire life hearing about it. I love my mother, I do, but I hate that book.”
“You hate Walden?” Grandma Daisy asked. “But it’s an American classic. Violet here spent her adult life studying it.”
“I suppose that explains why my mother thought you might have it. I’m sorry if she caused you any discomfort. If anything was damaged, send me an invoice.”
“Have you read it?” Grandma Daisy asked.
“No,” Edmund said in a clipped tone. “And I don’t plan to. I have heard enough of it my entire life. There is no need.”
“If the book was stolen, the police have to investigate it,” I said. “It’s still a crime. Since it can be tied to a woman’s death—accident or not—it makes it that much more important to look into.”
He shook his head. “I wish it would all go away. My mother needs to let the book go. The only sad thing about this is its value. I wish that hadn’t been lost. I would have loved for her to sell it. She’s on a fixed income, and the extra money would have been a great help to her. For that reason, I’m upset that it was stolen, assuming that that’s what happened. However, I know my mother well enough to know that she was never ever going to sell it. There was never going to be any amount of money that she would have accepted. If someone had offered her one million dollars for it, she would have turned it down. I just wish she would finally let it go. Maybe this will force her to do so.”
“I don’t think your mother is willing to let it go. She seemed very adamant that she needs that book back because it is her proof.”
He groaned. “I’m not surprised. Did she tell you that ridiculous story that Henry David Thoreau is her great-great-great grandfather?”
“I think she said four greats, but yes. You don’t believe that you are a descendant of Thoreau?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter if I am or not. There is no way to make any money off of his work. It’s all in the public domain and has been for a very long time. Maybe that sounds callous that I just look at it from a monetary perspective. She doesn’t care about the money. Her mission is to prove her relation to Thoreau. She’s tried to do it her whole life, but I will say it’s only been in the last five years that she’s really gone to such extreme lengths. She’s contacted museums, scholars, and colleges. None of them will give her the time of day. I think that, because she entering her twilight years, she is seeking validation. She truly believes that getting some sort of proof of her ancestry will give her that.”
“Where did she get this idea about Thoreau?” I asked.
“There have always been stories in my family that we were related to Thoreau somehow, but that’s all they were, just stories. I think, as time went on, my mother lost more and more of her grasp on reality, but she held onto the family lore. It became the most important thing in her life. She even sued the state of Massachusetts a few years ago because Walden Pond is a state park. She said that it rightfully belonged to her as Henry David’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter. The whole thing is ridiculous. She even went so far to ask me to change my name to Thoreau. I refused. I’m not going to buy into her lunacy.”
I cringed when he said that. Mental illness could have such painful impacts. Somehow I didn’t think he’d appreciate my sympathy. I changed the subject. “Did you know Roma?”
“I met her a while back. She was one of the very few people who took my mother seriously. I can’t say I was happy about it. My mother was in a fragile mental state, and I think it grew worse with Roma’s encouragement.”
“She admitted to giving Roma that book,” I said.
“She did?” Edmund asked.
“Roma claimed she had a way to prove that Imogene was related to Henry David.”
“I can see why my mother gave her the book then. After so many years of floating around in her own alternate reality, my mother is desperate for proof. She took a risk and gave the book to a person she trusted, probably the last person on this earth that she trusted.”
“Your poor mother,” Grandma Daisy said. “It sounds like she has been torturing herself for years trying to prove this.”
“Torturing herself and others,” Edmund said like he spoke from experience.
Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he added, “I do apologize for all this, but my mother is unstable. She has always been. I have been the parent for a long time. There are times I wish I could just wash my hands of the whole thing, but she is my mother. I have no choice but to deal with her.”
I bristled at the way he spoke about his mother, and my heart filled with compassion for Imogene. She wasn’t well. She was confused, and her condition might be made worse by lack of love from her only child.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re judging how I feel about my mother. If you lived through some of the challenges that I had faced as a child, you would think differently—not that I would ever wish that on another person.”
He was right. I didn’t know what it was like to grow up in such strange circumstances. However, I had grown up in very strange circumstances of my own. The bookshop was all the proof I needed of that. However, not knowing what Edmund had been through, I tried my best to give him the benefit of doubt.
“If she’s sick, she needs help,” I said.
He looked at me like I didn’t have a clue. “She’s also an adult, who is mostly functioning. In that case, she has to choose to take the help. We’ve tried so many things from counseling to medication. Nothing has worked. There’s nothing more I can do but to make sure she eats and stays out of trouble. The doctors don’t think her condition is bad enough that she needs to be in a facility.” He pressed his lips together as if he disagreed. He rubbed the back of his neck again. “I know I sound cold, but I do love her. She’s my mom. She was a single mother. I never knew my father. I’m doing the best I can to take care of her. I always have, even when I was a child. You can’t know what it’s like to take care of a parent at a young age or how that changes you as a person.”
I bit the inside of my lip. I did know. My experience was different, of course, but my mother died of ovarian cancer when I was thirteen. When she was ill, I spent countless hours caring for her. However, I knew physical illnesses and mental illnesses were very different. It wasn’t fair to compare my experience to his, but at the same time, he also had no way of knowing what I had been through in life.
I sensed Grandma Daisy bristle. She knew better than anyone what I had been through. She’d been there too.
“If your mother needs help…”
“I’ve tried.” He looked to my grandmother. “Daisy, can we go over these plans?”
Grandma Daisy looked to me, and I gave a slight nod. It seemed I had gotten all the information that I was going to get out of Imogene’s son for now.