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Clara had left for work. Kate was nowhere to be found. It felt like they were back to the drawing board with plans.
That would be all well and good if Amelia didn’t need to get back to New York. She had tips to earn and, maybe, a part to prepare for. The whole estate thing was turning into a bigger project than she’d have liked.
And now, with Clara acting despondent... the immediate future did not look bright.
Megan agreed, complaining in no uncertain terms that morning over coffee.
“Do you think she wants the cottage?” Megan asked, narrowing her eyes on Amelia suspiciously.
Amelia took a sip, and it scalded her tongue. She winced. “I have no idea. I think she just wants... normalcy. Right? I mean, don’t we all?”
Megan rolled her eyes. “I don’t see normalcy in our immediate future. We’ve only just begun uncovering issues with all this.”
Amelia considered her sister’s suggestion. “What do you mean ‘all this’?”
“Mom’s estate. Clara and Kate teaming up. Our past. All of it. We don’t even know what else is going to turn up from here on out. That lawyer acted like his four leather binders would answer everything. No. Too pat. Too neat. Especially for Nora.”
A defensive prickle climbed up Amelia’s spine, though she wasn’t sure who to defend. Poor handsome Michael? The man with his life together who was just trying to do his job? Or their mom, for weaving a web of secrets and promptly dying before a final showdown. “Michael’s just trying to help,” she started, trying again on her coffee, this time with more success. “And Mom was from a different time. A different era. She didn’t live her life online for the whole world to see. Of course we have to claw through some cobwebs.” Amelia involuntarily rested her gaze on Megan’s phone.
Tucking it away into her sweater pocket, Megan answered smoothly, “I beg to differ.”
“Oh?” Amelia replied, slurping down half her mug. She was going to need at least three more pots to make it through that day. Jimmy’s insistent presence. A problem with the estate. And now Megan, dredging up old wounds.
“When a woman puts her kids to work on her income projects while she flounces about at a country club for the weekend, I think it’s safe to say she is living out loud. Or... was, as the case may be.”
Shaking her head, Amelia couldn’t help but grin. “Touché.”
Kate and Megan carried hard feelings over how much they had to work growing up. Amelia, however, had enjoyed it. Perhaps, she was afraid to admit she was a little more like their mother. A little more interested in a publicly glamorous life, the same kind that Nora made happen. Did she pull it off by slave-driving her daughters?
Yes.
Did Amelia mind?
No.
Work hard, play hard. It was the adage Amelia had looked forward to most about growing up. Whenever that time came.
***
“I got a text from Kate.” Megan reappeared from the bathroom, her face scrubbed clean of the usual black eyeliner and pallid setting powder. She looked, for once, alive. Vulnerable, even.
Amelia smiled at her. “What did she say?”
“She had to run an errand. Something to do with Matt.” The two grinned at each other. “She said for us to go to Michael’s office and get the ball rolling with the appeal.”
“Can we do that without her?” Amelia asked, unhooking the leash from Dobi’s collar and letting him race free throughout the small living room. She’d never seen him as energetic as he’d been in Birch Harbor. Lakeside living suited him. Even in a little bungalow.
“I don’t know, but I’m not sitting around here waiting. If we aren’t moving on this, then I’m going back home. Sarah has been texting me nonstop. Brian can’t cook to save his life, and she’s stuck there alone with him.”
“I could think of worse people to be stuck alone with,” Amelia replied, grabbing her purse off the counter.
Megan frowned. “Oh, yeah? Like Jimmy?”
A cackle erupted out of Amelia’s mouth, and she quickly quelled it, bewildered by the outburst. “Sorry. I—I have no idea where that came from.”
“I made a joke. A sort of mean joke. You laughed. That’s where it came from.”
Amelia shook her head and started toward the door. “Yeah, thanks. I get it. I just meant—”
“Oh, no. I know what you meant. You meant that you didn’t want to laugh at Jimmy and your joke of a relationship.” Amelia whipped around, ready to start a fight, but Megan held her hands up in apology. “Sorry. I’m sorry. That was harsh. True, but harsh.”
“No, I understand, actually. All of you hate Jimmy. Even Dobi hates Jimmy. I’m embarrassed now that I left the poor guy with him. But... ”
“Oh, here we go. More excuses. Amelia, girl. Own it. If you’re going to stay with him, then stop apologizing for him. Stop giving credit to our feelings and start giving credit to yours. Yes, we don't like him. We think you should end it. But if you won't end it, then at least stand up for him. Fight for him. Make us like him."
Taken aback that Megan was, in some bizarre way, validating Jimmy (or, at least, Amelia’s stick-to-itiveness with Jimmy), Amelia cracked a grin. “I think I know where this is coming from,” she answered as they left Clara’s house and headed to Megan’s SUV.
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“Your dirty little secret,” Amelia replied, pinning Megan with a meaningful look.
Megan shook her head. “I don’t have any dirty secrets. I’m honest as they come.”
“Okay, then spill. What are you doing with the dating app?”
Megan shook her black hair back off her shoulders and pointed her key fob at the vehicle. But Amelia wasn’t going to take a beep for an answer. She didn’t get in on the passenger side. Instead, she stood in front of the SUV with her arms crossed.
Hesitating at the driver’s side door, Megan cocked her head. “Nothing. That’s what.”
With that, the raven-haired Hannigan hopped in the front seat and revved the engine.
Amelia wasn’t intimidated by this menacing show of force. Yet, she believed Megan. Her sisters might be imperfect and oddball. But they were honest.
Which, by all accounts, set them apart from their mother.
The late, great Nora Hannigan. Queen of the Country Club. Mother of Girls. Manipulator Extraordinaire.
That was Nora. But that was not her daughters.
***
They pulled up outside the family law offices, and Megan threw the SUV into park.
“I really don’t think we’re going to make any headway without Kate. She’s the executor,” Amelia protested as she chewed on a hangnail.
Megan shrugged. “We’ll try. If we get nowhere, then I’ll send Kate an emergency text.”
With that, they headed in together, Megan in front, pumping her arms purposefully into the quaint building as Amelia strode behind.
“Oh, it’s the Hannigan sisters,” the secretary cooed from her perch down below a tall reception desk.
Megan answered first. “Stevenson. Megan Stevenson.”
Sharon made a face at Megan’s correction. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“She’ll be back to Hannigan soon, anyway,” Amelia added helpfully, but Megan threw her a look. “What?” Amelia asked her sister before stage-whispering to the secretary, “She’s getting a divorce.”
“Now that’s a darn shame.” The woman stood behind the desk and wrung her hands in front of her ample bosom. “I’m terribly sorry to hear it. Divorce is worse than death, they say. I wouldn’t know. My Harry and I have been together since the war.”
Amelia stifled a giggle. Whatever war that woman could possibly be talking about made no sense. And even if it did, using war as a context for the birth of a marriage felt morbid, at best.
She cut in, trying to divert the conversation appropriately. “Ma’am, we’re hoping to see Mr. Matuszewski.”
Michael Matuszewski wasn’t originally from Birch Harbor. His family, however, was. Amelia wondered why he’d come to Birch Harbor at all. Was Detroit overrun with lawyers? Did this guy spend every weekend at the lake? Amelia wondered quite a lot about him.
“Ladies, hello.” His familiar, warm voice boomed at the edge of the hallway. Amelia and Megan looked up.
“Hi,” Megan said, waving a rigid hand.
Amelia smiled. “Hi, Michael.” She could have sworn his eyes lingered on her a moment longer than was appropriate, for their particular circumstances or any, really. Between veritable strangers, a lingering look was almost always indecent. What mattered was whether it was welcome.
Amelia decided it was.
“I was expecting Kate this morning. Are you here waiting for her?”
Megan glanced back at Amelia, and they turned to him together, Megan taking the lead. “Yes and no. Kate sent us ahead of her to reopen the conversation.”
“Come on back. I expected as much.” He waved them toward his office, more casually than the day before. Now, despite the early hour, Michael wore his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair was a little less gelled and a little messier. Still, however, he radiated power and control. Two things Amelia had never known a man to possess. After all, she was reared by a strong woman. Their dad had left the picture before Amelia even got to high school.
“Clara,” he began, once they were seated orderly around his desk.
Amelia frowned and glanced at Megan. “Pardon?” she asked.
“You’re going to contest on Clara’s behalf, I presume?”
“Yes,” Megan answered this time, her posture rigid and voice assured. “We’d like to discuss rearranging some things based on the fact that she was entirely left out. And, well, she was Nora’s daughter, I mean.”
Michael arched an eyebrow but answered evenly. “Sure. I understand. With Kate’s blessing, we can move to arrange the proper paperwork in contest against the terms of the estate. Is she on her way, or...?”
Megan and Amelia looked at each other. “She will be, yes,” Amelia replied as Megan pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped away on a text message.
“Should we come back?” Amelia asked, her eyes on Michael now, studying his features, his sharp, lawyerly jaw. His deep gray eyes. He looked like a lawyer. But not, maybe, a small-town lawyer.
“No, no. I am free this morning. Other than an afternoon meeting with the town council, I’m all yours.” There it was. Amelia was positive. He was examining her just as she was examining him. She suddenly felt aware of her crow’s feet. Her bare face and flat hair. Digging in her purse for her lip gloss would be an obvious maneuver. One only an insecure woman would enact.
Her heart thudded in her chest as Megan fumbled with the phone just inches away, but Amelia reached into the deepest recesses of everything she knew about acting and pulled out the confidence of a starlet. A top-billed actress. A Lady Macbeth, even.
“Michael, tell me. What brought you to Birch Harbor originally?” She pricked up the corner of her lip and dipped her chin only just, glaring through her naked, dark eyelashes.
He faltered a bit, and Amelia felt good. Better than she’d ever felt with Jimmy. “My family,” he answered, anchoring his jaw in his hand on top of his desk. She had his full attention.
Amelia’s eyes fell on the lower half of his face. The stubble and full lips. White teeth. “Your parents... or?”
“Yes. This practice was my grandfather’s, actually. My dad moved away and never looked back. But, well, I was curious, and I love the history of the place.”
He was about to carry on, and Amelia was entirely enraptured, but Megan broke in.
“Amelia,” she said, her voice ice cold. “Kate wrote back. She can’t come. She, um—” Megan flicked her eyes up at Michael before staring hard at her sister. “We need to go. Now.”