The Evolution of Man (The Trust Fund Duet 2)

She sits up, looking like some sleeping beauty awakened with a kiss. The irony is that if she’d done the rounds of chemo and experimental treatments that the doctor prescribed, she would look much worse. Her hair would be gone, her skin might be bruised.

And the cancer might have been held back, if only for a few years.

I fought with her to do the treatments. Begged her. In the end it wasn’t truly Christopher who kept her from having them. I had to accept that she didn’t want that. That she wanted to live out what was left of her life with whatever peace she could find. This house is part of that peace. The fried wontons are part of that peace. But God, it hurts to watch it happen. It hurts bad enough that I dread coming home, and that’s when I feel guilty.

“How’s the library coming?”

She knows about the issues with contractors, though I haven’t told her quite how dangerou

s it is for me to work on the restoration with the current structural problems. And I have no plans to tell her about Christopher Bardot, who’s still a tender spot considering he left her destitute after taking the helm of my inheritance. I should not want a man who did that. I never should have been able to love him, in the deepest, most secret part of my heart. “The last shipment of oak looks really good. A close match. I’m going to stain it and see how it holds up. The bigger problem is my own skill with the chisel.”

“You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”

I make a face. “Are you sure I shouldn’t hire someone? I talked to Professor Basu over e-mail, and she said there’s a really promising woodworking artist who graduated last year.”

She sits up, moving slowly because I know she gets dizzy sometimes. “I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

That’s what she says when I’m thinking about doing the wrong thing. “The wall is worth doing well, even if I have to find someone else to do it.”

“Someone else who understands your vision?”

That’s the part that kept me from e-mailing Professor Basu back to ask for this guy’s contact information. There’s skill and there’s passion. Both are required to do this wall. I don’t have much skill in this medium, despite having graduated in studio art, but I don’t trust anyone else to have the passion. The wall speaks to me, and with my clumsy hands I’m speaking back.

Mom stands up and then slides back to the bed. I catch her under her elbows, pulling her to standing. “Are you okay?” I breathe even though the answer is clearly no.

She’s not okay. She’s dying. That’s what this house is—a personal hospice.

A place to say goodbye.

Her slender hand cups my cheek. “You’re so strong,” she whispers.

“I’m not,” I whisper back because even now I want to fight her. I want to beg her to do some kind of therapy, even though I know we passed the point of no return. There’s only death now, and waiting for it is killing me.

I know something is different as I hopscotch over rubble.

A sharp mechanical sound cuts through the hum of male voices. The heavy plastic sheeting that protects the library from the elements is my very own looking glass. As I step through it, I find a whole bevy of strange creatures, muscled men with tools and boots, as if they stepped from the wall and became flesh.

They spare me a few glances, a little curious, mostly wary, before going about their work. It’s almost noon, and though I only got up and showered an hour ago, the sheen of sweat on their brows tells me they’ve been at this a long time. They have hard hats on their heads and smudges on their dark shirts.

“Harper.” The low voice makes me jolt.

I turn to face Sutton, who looks more like the old version of himself, the one I first met, wearing black slacks and a white button-down, the sleeves rolled up to reveal golden hair on his forearms. He isn’t covered in smudges or sweat, but he does have a yellow hard hat on, burnished curls peeking out from beneath it.

My heart thumps a warm welcome for those forearms. “What are you doing here?”

“Restoring the library.” He raises an eyebrow. “Like you asked me to.”

“Well yeah, but I thought you couldn’t find a construction crew willing to work on the library. And these people seem like they know what they’re doing. Not like you found them on Craigslist.”

“Thanks,” he says drily. “They do know what they’re doing, and I didn’t find them on Craigslist. You don’t need to worry about the library. How’s your mother feeling?”

Guilt clenches my insides, along with worry and fear and a terrible grief that she’s slipping through my fingers. I can’t catch her. It’s like reaching for smoke. “She’s doing okay. How do you know she’s in town?”

He lifts his shoulder in a vague shrug, which I assume means I wouldn’t like his methods. A worker appears at his side to show him a paper. He scans it quickly, his blue eyes sharp, before nodding. The man hurries away to the next room where the books are kept.

“So what did you have to offer them?” I ask.

He steers me by my elbow away from the workers, his touch a delicate burn. “It occurred to me how strange it was for no one to take the job. Tanglewood isn’t exactly in a construction boom right now, which is partly why we wanted to revitalize the west side.”