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“I’m terribly sorry. Terribly sorry. I don’t know how this slipped by.” Sharon stood in Michael’s office, wringing her hands safely behind the protection of her receptionist’s desk.
Michael, with his hands shoved in his pockets, faced the four of them in the waiting area.
“It’s nothing legal. Nothing that can formally alter the conditions of the will like a contesting of the will,” Michael warned them, his voice even. “I expect you’ll still contest on Clara’s behalf, correct?”
Kate waved a hand. “Yes, but... well, there’s been an oversight there, too,” she admitted, glancing at her sisters.
He cocked his head. “How so?”
Wondering if she should start or if she should press him to reveal his news, she looked to the others for help.
Amelia cleared her throat. “You go first, Michael.”
He reached toward Sharon who fussed herself nearly into a fit, grabbing a generic yellow legal envelope. “Here. I just can’t imagine the confusion you’ve suffered,” she whined, her attention squarely on Clara.
Michael accepted the envelope and reached his hand inside. “You see, your mother left four notes, not just one.” He winced a little as he said it and read over each page. “Won’t you come back?”
Anxious now, and even excited, Kate motioned her sisters, and they followed Michael to his office, where just a couple days ago they’d first met as one big group. So much had seemed to happen in the interim. Stress and strife. Anxiety and the depths of pain and confusion.
And there was always the answer, there in the darn lawyer’s office.
Then again, Kate felt certain that nothing they were about to see would rival the news from her own note.
“Honestly,” Michael began, smoothing his tie as he lowered into his seat. “What happened was that Nora had left that yellow envelope with Sharon about a year ago. Apparently, your mother told Sharon to add the contents to her will without reading what was inside. You see,” Michael shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.
Kate felt her hands gripping the arms of the chair unnecessarily. It was just paper. Just a note. Surely, there would be nothing else to say?
“You see,” Michael repeated, fixing his stare on the envelope in his hand. “Sharon had removed just the one page—the one I gave you, Kate,” he flicked a glance to Kate. “Since your mom never saw me or asked to open her estate and formally publish a revision, I figured it was a personal note that could be read by you,” he looked at her again before his gaze wandered to the others.
They all nodded eagerly, desperate for what was to come.
“Before she threw out the envelope, Sharon dug inside and found three more notes, or pages, what you will.” With that, he finally slid his hand out and with it, just as he’d claimed, three more pages—identical to the one Kate had read for herself. Her pulse slowed, and her jaw fell slack. Something like disappointment curled around her heart, but she pushed that down in order to tend to her excitement at what else could be lurking in their mother’s private notes. Michael cleared his throat again. “Sharon had forgotten to give the other ones to me, because I was out of the office the day she found them. Well, today she happened to sort through her files and found them again.” Michael passed the thin stack to Kate.
Not a single one was addressed to any of them, and no added notes appeared anywhere.
Kate swallowed and looked down the line of her sisters. “Here,” she said, handing one page to each sister to read. Kate figured she’d had her own. Now it was their turn.
Forcing patience upon herself, she simply studied each sister, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for an expression of shock or heartbreak or realization, maybe.
Megan lifted her eyes first. “It’s another diary entry all right,” Megan declared. “Here, listen.”
***
May 24, 1973
I didn’t think I’d be back here, writing in you. I figured my diary days ended when I was a teenager.
You’ll be interested to know I’ve met someone. Well, I didn’t just “meet” him. I was set up on a date, if you can believe that! You turn 24 and people start to wonder about you, I suppose. Yes, my mother arranged for me to have a picnic with Wendell Acton. His family is from Birch Harbor, too. But they keep to themselves. Wendell went to the Catholic school, not Birch Harbor High. I’ve seen him at church but nowhere else, really. His father runs the lighthouse up north of town. They’re a little odd, but that’s okay with me.
So, the picnic. Let me tell you about the picnic. It was pretty well perfect. We set out on the lake in Wendell’s wooden boat, and he brought sandwiches and a thermos of cider to share. I have to confess, I figured I’d never meet a man I could tolerate.
Boy, can I tolerate Wendell. More than tolerate, in fact.
The real question is, how did my own mother figure Wendell for me? He isn’t the sort she would have “pinned” for a daughter of hers. I’m not sure my father knows. Either way, supposedly she bumped into him when he was oiling the pews in the parish hall, and one thing led to another, and there I was, in a wooden rowboat on Lake Huron with this poor boy from the outskirts of town. It was like a scene from a storybook.
When we got back to land, we went for a walk into the woods. He held my hand. I’ll never forget this, but we saw fireflies! Yes! The first of the season, right there in this little clearing.
And then, he asked me then and there to be his girlfriend. He said the fireflies were a “sign.” I believe in signs, so I had to say yes.
Now here I am, a twenty-something with a beau. We’ll see where this goes. Stay tuned!
***
Megan dropped the sheet to her lap, tears wedging themselves into the corners of her eyes. “Did she ever tell us how they met?”
Kate shook her head. “Not that I remember. That’s so sweet. She wanted us to have that.” Each of them, now, was dabbing at their eyes over the innocent words of their mother. Words that had nothing to do with the will, but that she had to share with them, somehow, even in the throes of her disease.
“Did she tell Sharon why she dropped these off?” Kate asked Michael, gesturing to the other women and their pages.
He shook his head and lifted his palms. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so. She was a little... a little confused, if memory serves.”
A sadness washed over Kate, but she pushed it down, lifting her chin to Clara, instead.
“What does yours say, Clara?”
The youngest, who’d long ago begrudgingly called into work and requested sub coverage, cleared her throat. “This one seems more recent but there’s no date, just a month. It seems like she was trying to... plan ahead or change the will. It’s confusing. You’re right, Michael. She seems... confused.” Clara licked her lips and read through a trembling voice.
***
April
I’m planning to visit the law offices today to make some changes and plans for the future. I don’t know the law, and there’s a good chance Clara will be left out entirely if I don’t give them this here note that I’m writing.
Legally, no, I guess Clara is supposed to get nothing. Oh, the ways of the world. A girl cares for you and loves you and calls you mother and that means nothing to the powers that be.
Well, here I am to tell you, Mr. Lawyer, that you can rewrite the law. Give Clara whatever she wants. She can decide, okay? She’s spent her whole life without that chance. I’m even the one to suggest she get her teaching credentials, after all.
Okay, now that we have that squared away, I’d like to add some other provisions. Please change it so the girls can’t sell off the properties. I’d like to see them keep the four-plex as rental income. And they can build on the land and have a new home here. Maybe one of the girls needs a fresh start and I’m too busy to see which. Well whoever that is, grant it.
The harbor house must remain as it IS. But for the love of all things holy, don’t turn it into a museum. I’d be humiliated to have people rummaging around in my childhood home like no one ever really lived there. That’s what happens to these “homes” that turn into museums, you see. The visitors forget what they were truly meant to be. The House on the Harbor was meant to be slept in. With beds and a fridge full of food and a sink full of dishes. I’d have stayed there to keep it alive if it weren’t for Wendell leaving us. After a while, a woman can’t bear to live with her husband’s ghost. So that’s why I left for the cottage. I need privacy. I needed to be away from that burden and from the prying eyes of other people who carried their suppositions and held them over my head.
So I left that house.
But you better not, Hannigan girls.
Keep it occupied, dear girls. Please and THANK YOU!
That’s not to say I like the idea of a museum, just not MY house.
One other item of business then I’ll end. Matt Fiorillo came by the cottage yesterday. Truth be told that’s why I decided to make this change at all. He asked me what would become of Clara, if you can believe that. Well, I suppose I can. Matt may be the boy who threw my life into chaos, but he’s a good boy. He loves Clara, and he doesn’t even know her. I suppose that means something.
So, anyway, here I am, at the behest of that meddling Matt Fiorillo, rewriting my will. I already did, though! I met that other lawyer, the one who left town, and I told him please be sure ALL OF MY DAUGHTERS are IN MY WILL!!! It was a big job, because I didn’t have time to go over names and socials. He had to look it up himself. Who can trust these lawyers? Not me. So that’s why I’ve penned this ADDENDUM. To see to it that my girls get their comeuppance, no thanks to you, MATT FIORILLO for your snarky suggestion.
***
Kate belted out a laugh at the final sentence. “I’m sorry,” she said through tears. “I can’t help it, but she never did like Matt. And only because of the pregnancy. She thought he did it on purpose or something.” After a sniffle, Kate added, “It sounds like Mom was more confused than we realized.”
Clara, Megan, and Amelia were weeping, but a few laughs made their way through. “It sounds like Matt wanted me to get something,” Clara said at last, staring at Kate for an answer.
Kate nodded, shutting her eyes briefly and wiping the rest of the wetness from her cheeks. “Of course he did. He’s always loved you, Clara. Even when he couldn’t show you.”
Warmth seemed to return to Clara’s cheeks, and Kate knew in that moment that it was all Clara needed. That slip of paper wrought by their mother’s well-meaning hand. It was all the little one needed to feel safe in her family.
And, the note provided some more guidance. A plea from beyond the grave that would help them nail down everything they were struggling with.
“It sounds like our plan is on track with what Mom wanted,” Kate pointed out, as the others composed themselves. Michael kept quiet, a soft smile filling his face.
“What is your plan?” he asked quietly.
“For starters, it seems like we need to fill that big heirloom on the harbor with people, don’t you think, girls?” Kate asked her sisters, wondering if they agreed.
Each one nodded enthusiastically, but it was Clara who answered. “That’s it!” she cried out. “The Heirloom on the Harbor!”
“What do you mean?” Megan asked.
Clara nodded excitedly, but Kate caught on fast. “What about... The Heirloom Inn?”