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MORGAN STARTLED AT Cole’s question. “I never thought to ask how I was supposed to prove where I’m living. I’ll bet Mr. Hathaway has connections throughout the state. People he could have check up on me.”
“Forget I brought it up. It’s not worth risking your inheritance.”
Was it? She gazed around the living room. Tried to think of it as home. Sure, it would take a lot more time, effort—and money—than she’d expected when she’d decided to move here, but the challenge was growing on her.
“You can keep working on your list,” she said. “I’m going to finish with this last box, then make some calls. Get Project New Life on Elm Street underway.”
Cole’s lips curved upward. “New life. I like the sound of that. Glad to be doing what I can to help.”
He trekked upstairs, and Morgan opened the last of Uncle Bob’s cartons, the heaviest of the three. Lots of clasped envelopes. All the non-clothing type stuff. The possessions that must have grounded him. “All right, Uncle Bob. Let’s see what was important to you.”
She opened the first envelope. A gold wristwatch. Still ticking. The clichéd retirement gift. JBW, a brand she wasn’t familiar with. She turned it over, searching for an inscription.
Robert M. Tate. With thanks for your 30 years at MFS.
MFS? She found several notepads with a Metropolitan Financial Services header. Three pens. Lip balm. A travel-size alarm clock. A tube of hand cream. That could come in handy, so she started a keeper pile.
Beneath that envelope sat three framed pictures. One, a picture of the two brothers, late teens, grinning as they leaned on a vintage car. Her father had the same photo stuck in a family album. A second was of Uncle Bob in a black suit—one she hadn’t seen in his possessions—smiling for the camera, shaking hands with a man in a tuxedo accepting a plaque. The third picture had been taken at the Villas. Morgan recognized what the staff person had called the gathering room. Uncle Bob was sitting around a table with four other men, all studying a partially completed jigsaw puzzle.
From financial advisor to puzzle assembler. Morgan wondered what she’d be doing if she ended up in a place like the Villas.
Beneath the pictures was a plaque Morgan assumed was the one in the second photo. A Certificate of Appreciation from the Portland Literacy Council, dated 1992. She pursed her lips. After making a note of the organization on one of Uncle Bob’s notepads, she excavated another layer of the carton.
Books. Non-fiction tomes. Biographies of people she’d never heard of. A book about making money on Wall Street. All effective cures for insomnia as far as she was concerned. She left them on the couch and moved on.
Next, a spiral notebook the same size as the sheet of paper she’d found in Uncle Bob’s pocket. She yanked it out and flipped it open. Could this explain the numbers she and Cole had been trying to make sense of?
More blue ink. More numbers. Pages very much like the one they’d found. The same five digit number at the top, then columns of numbers. She turned a few pages. The cover said seventy pages, but there were only fifteen left.
Did Uncle Bob tear them out when they’d served their purpose? Is that why she’d found one in his slacks?
She was about to call for Cole, then decided to let him finish his repair assessment before diving down the rabbit hole to decipher secret codes. She set the notebook next to her purse.
She pried the prongs open on the next envelope and dumped the contents onto the couch. A dozen or so CDs. These might be worth keeping, too. Most of them were Best Of collections. Jazz, Big Band music from the forties. GI Jive. Bing Crosby. Artie Shaw. Given dementia patients often lived in their pasts, she imagined Uncle Bob had gotten pleasure from listening to these.
How had he listened? There hadn’t been a CD player in the cartons. Did the Villas supply them in the residents’ rooms? Or had these been personal belongings he’d brought with him, and they’d sat unlistened to? A pang of sadness at the possibility crawled through her.
She replaced the CDs in the envelope and added it to her keeper pile. Maybe she’d attempt to broaden Cole’s musical horizons.
Beneath the envelope she found a small, padded pouch. Morgan unzipped it. More CDs. She tipped the jewel cases onto the couch. Three Tatiana Morgan concert CDs. When had Uncle Bob gotten these? And why?
Hearing footfalls on the stairs, she snatched them up and stuffed them into her purse.
~~~
COLE TROTTED DOWN THE stairs. Morgan was stuffing things back into the carton. “Anything good?” he asked.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “No secret decoder ring, if that’s what you meant. There was one potentially useful thing.” Morgan waved a spiral notebook. “This has more pages like the one we found.”
Curious, Cole took it from her and leafed through the pages.
“There’s no explanation, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Morgan said.
“That would be too easy. Takes all the fun out of it.” He handed Morgan the notebook and tapped the one he’d used for his notes. “I’ve got a start. I don’t have a tape measure with me, and I’m not up to speed on estimating materials and costs. I can do a survey down here, and then we can prioritize your list.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He hesitated before asking his next question. If there was going to be a massive construction project, there would have to be a place to store and stage materials. The basement made the most sense, as the garage was detached and in back, and Morgan would probably want to keep her car there. The basement was overrun with cartons, which would have to be dealt with. Still, there was no need for Morgan to have to go into the basement to deal with them. No need to call attention to the fear she’d displayed.
“You want me to bring in some cartons from the basement so you can start going through them?” he asked.
She dug into her purse, seemingly rearranging the contents. He waited for her response. After a moment, her shoulders straightened and she met his gaze. No fear showed in her big, brown eyes.
“That would be a help, yes. Thanks. Maybe three or four? I want to get back to the inn where I have an internet connection so I can start getting basic creature comforts ordered.”
“I’ll bring in some boxes, then scope out the downstairs. I can have a rough idea in twenty minutes, I’d say.”
Morgan stared at her purse for a moment, then the ceiling, as if trying to decide if she could put off her tasks for twenty minutes. “Okay.”
He wondered if she’d trust him with a spare key. He could come back, do more rigorous measurements, get materials listed. He’d let her be the one to bring it up, if and when she was ready.
He strode down to the basement and grabbed the nearest carton. It was lighter than he’d expected. He brought it into the living room and set it near the couch. He went back for two more.
Morgan stared at them, not moving. She wasn’t afraid of boxes, was she? No, she’d had no qualms about dealing with the ones from the Villas. The cartons were all taped shut, so Cole slit them open with his Leatherman. He left her to wherever her thoughts had transported her, and to give her space, started with the kitchen.
He made rudimentary sketches. Today was about an initial assessment. Then, he could discuss how far Morgan wanted to take things. Go minimal, replacing what wasn’t functioning, or do some make the house more than bare bones livable renovations. He had no idea whether there were any rules dictating how much money she could spend.
The puke green refrigerator hummed, and when Cole opened the door, the cold air told him it was working. The stove emitted proper blue flames, although she’d need a replacement cover for one of the burners. Did they still make them for this model? He made a note to let Morgan know appliances could be on a not critical list if she wanted to put off updating the kitchen. Likewise, the Formica countertops were scratched and stained, but they served their purpose.
He’d learned while working with his father that homeowners often started out wanting to do the bare minimum, but once they saw one new bright and shiny, they wanted to upgrade the entire space.
“Don’t complain. Changing minds keeps the food on our table, the roof over our heads,” his father would say as jobs stretched out.
Cole should have checked all the plumbing before going to the Tool Shed, but he’d wanted to score points by giving Morgan a toilet that didn’t leak.
When had it become about scoring points? Was it when he’d been grilled about her in the locker room? Was he afraid one of the gang would try to make a move on her? After all, he’d insisted there was nothing between himself and Morgan.
Dawdling over his task wasn’t the way to score points, whether he was trying to or not. He moved on through the dining area. No holes in the walls that vandals heisting copper pipes would have made. Some missing, some loose baseboards. A few of the electrical outlets lacked covers. He added them to his list.
He glanced over his shoulder. Morgan hadn’t opened any of the boxes. Instead, she was working her cell phone. Maybe she couldn’t wait for a Wi-Fi connection.
He moved into the powder room, checking the sink, which he hadn’t bothered with while he was fixing the toilet. A slow drip from the faucet spoke to needing a new seat washer. He added that to his list. The sink bowl was rust-stained. Another non-critical issue to let Morgan know about. The cracked tiles on the floor fell into the same category.
A high-pitched shriek from the living room sent him running.