Flora’s directions in mind, Margo entered the house hidden behind the trees in the backyard. It was just as Diana had described it, but Margo didn’t slow down to appreciate the details. She had one thing to retrieve and her focus was solely on that. With Edna taking the lead, opening the home with a key on a key ring Flora had retrieved from her bedside table drawer, Margo followed her through the tiny home, to a closet in the home office.
“No one has been in this closet for a long time.” Edna flipped to another key and stuck it in the doorknob. The lock clacked, and the door popped open. “There’s a light up above. I have to go back to the house. Will you be okay?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Margo said, already moving past her and pulling the chain. When the light flickered on, she inhaled a slow, shallow breath.
This room was a pack rat’s dream. Books upon books burgeoned from the built-in cabinets, with trinkets poised on stacks of paper and newspaper clippings. Rocks, big and little, from—Margo could only assume—places Antonio found interesting, were piled in the corners.
“So this is where I get it from,” she mused. All at once, she felt at home in this space. Her fingers skimmed a dusty shelf; she fingered the beads of a plastic army-green rosary hanging from a nail on the wall.
The sight of all of it put a smile on her face for the first time since Flora revealed that Antonio had dictated the letter. She had been ready to blame Flora; she had also been ready to forgive her, but how could she forgive someone who was already dead?
But Margo pushed all that aside for now. There would be days, weeks, and months to process. Right now, more pressing issues remained.
When Flora had informed Margo of her father’s will, Margo had wanted proof. The idea of taking on the family’s properties was outrageous and far-fetched. And if the man had known there was a possibility she existed, why hadn’t he tried to find her?
According to Flora, her father had two copies of his will: one kept by his lawyers in a separate safe, another in a brown leather-bound folder in this closet.
Margo’s phone buzzed in her pocket. When she looked, more text notifications flashed on the screen. But she didn’t want anything to distract her. If this had been last week, she would have taken a picture of this closet and then slumped into a chair and spent too much time composing a message to accompany it.
Now, she had neither the time nor the emotional bandwidth to do it. As she looked for the folder through the stacks of papers and books packed in the shelves and corners, the gravity of what she was doing caught up to her. She was in her dead father’s office closet. Her hands shook; to ground herself, she whispered her instructions. “Leather-bound portfolio. Leather-bound portfolio.”
Then she caught sight of something brown and shiny. She touched the smooth spine.
“This is it,” she whispered.
She stepped out of the closet and sat in the office chair that looked out to the backyard, where the sun had begun to descend, casting an orange hue in the sky. It dawned on her then—the home’s name now made perfect sense. Sunset Corner. This seat Margo had taken, this view, was Sunset Corner.
She untied the straps of the portfolio, fanned it open, and lifted a stapled document.
The legalese was relentless. Margo was an artist and not a scientist or a lawyer for a reason—her eyes glossed over technical terms like skates on ice. She scanned down, turned pages, until she found the words Las Cruces and then backtracked to the beginning of the section. She read aloud: “ ‘I hereby bequeath the ownership and management of the Cruz Estate to Flora Cruz until her death or until she determines she is unable. Thereafter, the eldest descendant will inherit the Cruz Estate. The Cruz Estate consists of Las Cruces Hotel, Sunset Corner, and all its assets. Forthcoming owners will have authoritative control and input in the hotel’s board of directors.’ ”
Her chest tightened with the start of tears as emotions slammed against her. Anger at her father, then wonder as to how this development would play out. How would this new truth fit into her current life? What part of herself would she have to give up for this legacy? Would Diana miss her if she moved?
The thought came so suddenly that she dropped the stapled papers in her hand. Not once had she contemplated leaving her daughter’s side permanently, and vice versa. Home base had always been with or near one another, in Old Town Alexandria. But this will might change that.
Margo buried herself in words for the next few hours: in the will, in newspaper clippings her father saved that marked the passage of time, in the titles of the books he kept, in the annotated margins. She cataloged the way he grouped his memorabilia. Rocks in one place, marked by a black marker for the date, receipts in a wooden box. Photos, sepia with time, interspersed throughout. Soon, night truly fell.
But aside from the will, there were no other hints of her mother, of their love and relationship. Margo searched for clues in all the ways readers search for Easter eggs in their favorite authors’ books. But it was to no avail. After sorting through another receipt, she slumped against the desk chair.
It was as if, for her father, Margo’s life had been written in chalk, then wiped away with one fell swoop.
“Tita Margo?” Colette’s voice echoed through the house. While it had been only a few hours, it felt like days had passed. Margo sat up in her chair and took stock of the state of the office, now littered with items she’d examined.
“In the office!” she called back.
Several sets of footsteps followed, and Colette appeared at the doorway. Her hair was slightly askew, but she bore a sad smile, probably in response to Margo’s state of being. “Hi.”
“How are you? How was your nap?”
“Okay.” Her eyes bounced around the room. “You haven’t been answering your texts.”
“Sorry, I put it on silent. I was looking for …” But Margo couldn’t pin down the right word. Instead, she shrugged.
“I have people here to see you.”
Margo shook her head, not understanding. “Oh?”
Colette stepped aside, and two figures came into the room. At first, they were so out of place that Margo didn’t recognize the man and woman. Her mind was so mired in the past, in simply catching up on decades of denial and days of shock. But here were her dearest friends. Cameron and Roberta. Handsome, steady Cameron in his polo and shorts, and travel-weary but perfectly made-up Roberta. Her two bookends. She stood, and they rushed toward her.
“Oh my God, what?” was all Margo could say, tears streaming down her cheeks. “How did you know?”
“I gave you twenty-four hours after I knew your flight landed to contact us, but you didn’t make contact. You didn’t text us. And we weren’t going to let you get away with it,” Roberta said, and slapped at her gently. “You’re lucky I love you or else I would disown you. Did you expect us to sit there in LA and go on with our normal lives when you didn’t text or post or anything?” She frowned. “I’m mad at you still, so this is not over.” She hugged Margo again. When she pulled back, her eyes were as wide as saucers. “What is all this stuff?”
“I have a lot to catch you up on.” Margo patted her face free of tears as Roberta rifled through the papers. She looked up at Cameron, who was a sight for sore eyes. Seeing him soothed some of her ache, and in her relief she felt no awkwardness between them.
He wrapped his arms around her, and she sank into his hold. She’d needed someone to hug her, to hold her, and for a moment she felt protected and secure.
“I’m just so glad you’re okay,” he said.
“How did you guys even find me?”
“C’mon now, you’re talking to me. I can work the Google.” His lips crooked up into a half smile. “And, my memory is still on point.”
“But your plans …”
“Our plans.”
“That’s right, old lady, where you go, we go. Besides, I couldn’t stand being around Cam with his sad face,” Roberta yelled from the closet. “Just kiss her again already. I’m not looking this time!”
“Oh, Bert.” Cameron shut his eyes slowly and shook his head.
From the desk chair, Colette giggled, her fingers on her lips.
When he opened his eyes again, he stared intently into Margo’s eyes, all trace of his usual whimsy gone. He took both of her hands in his, squeezed them gently. “I don’t want to have to admit when Bert’s right, but when we kissed at the airport, and then you left? It tore me apart, Margo. It dawned on me that we’ve known each other all of our lives, and that was only our first kiss. You and I know that time can be a jerk, and I don’t want to waste any more of it.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I’m here. That if you don’t mind, can I hang out wherever you are?”
“Cameron, spell it out,” Roberta interrupted, voice muffled.
Cameron cleared his throat. “I love you, Margaret. Can we—can we have a go at this?”
And somehow in the middle of Margo’s deep sorrow, gratitude sprouted for what she did have. She had these two out-of-this-world friends. And, with one of them, love. Love. Love in a way that wasn’t instant or earth-shattering, but the kind that bloomed slowly like an agave flower, and in their case took almost eight decades to see its potential.
“I love you, too.” She stepped forward and kissed him on the lips. From beneath her fingers she felt the smooth fabric of his shirt, and leaned in. He tasted of caramel, of comfort, of home.
“Ma?” a woman’s voice piped from behind her. “Cameron?”
“Who are these people? What is this?” boomed a second voice. Joshua. “His things, they’re everywhere … everyone, out. Out!”