“I want them,” I blurted out, surprising myself. What I was going to do with a bookstore, an apartment, and…Gideon Barlow, I didn’t know, but I had a grandma and she’d wanted me to have them.
A grandma Mom never told me about.
A grandma who was dead.
“Okay, I can send the documents over, if you’d like. You can sign that way, or we can meet up if you’re planning on coming out right away.”
His words were muffled after that, Chester Harrington telling me things I was sure I needed to know but couldn’t sort through at the moment. The pressure in my chest grew. This was…different and out of control. Those things always overwhelmed me.
“Milo? Are you there?” he asked. Clearly, he’d spoken, and I hadn’t replied.
I counted down from three, and strangely, wondered about Gideon Barlow and why my grandma wanted to make sure he kept the shop but wanted the building to go to me, and…what an odd name Gideon Barlow was. This tattoo guy was already strange to me, and I hadn’t even met him yet.
“I’ll, um…be there. I’m coming. There. To Portland.” I’d never been to Portland in my life. Maybe I should say no. I couldn’t do this. Why would I want to do this? It was so out of my routine. I didn’t do impulsive. It made everything too overwhelming, but…I had a grandma…and she’d given me a bookstore, and that intrigued me. “Can you give me a week or so to get my affairs in order?”
See. I could do this. I needed to do this. I wanted to do it, which was what made me push forward, toward more independence, which I craved.
“Yes, of course. Let me give you my number.” My hand shook as I took it down and ended the call. I gathered my things, stomach tense, but I forced myself to hold my head high when I walked out of the office.
Mom hadn’t told me… Why hadn’t she told me?
“Marybeth, I have some personal family business to attend to. I’m taking the rest of the day off. Can you cancel my schedule?”
Her mouth dropped open, probably because I’d never taken time off. I was killing this independence thing already. “Yes, of course. Do you need me to call you a car?”
“No, thank you.” I went straight down the hallway toward Mom’s office.
“Hi, Mr. Copeland. How are you?” one of our newer advisers asked.
“Terrible. My mother is a liar.” I hated lies. I didn’t understand why anyone told them. How hard was it to just tell the truth?
“Oh… I…”
I didn’t hear their response as I pushed open the door to Mom’s office. “Milo…what are you doing?”
“I have a grandma…well, had. And she lived on the same island her whole life, which means you knew about her. She died, and she left me her bookstore and a tattoo parlor and Tattoo Guy.”
“Who is Tattoo Guy?” Mom asked. I studied her face, looking for sadness, because it hit me then that I was talking about her mom.
“My tattoo guy,” I said, which made no sense. I didn’t like tattoos, or want tattoos, and he wasn’t mine. But I couldn’t sort through my thoughts enough to figure out what to call him.
She sighed. “Come in and close the door so the whole office doesn’t hear us.” She’d always cared what other people thought. I knew it bothered her that people thought I was odd, though in this case, it wasn’t so much about appearances but rather love. As angry as she made me, I knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do for me, no battle she wouldn’t fight, even though I didn’t want anyone fighting on my behalf. If need be, I would do it myself.
“Why didn’t you tell me? About Wilma Allen?”
She flinched, either at my question or the name, before steeling her face again. “Because she wasn’t my mother. My parents died in a car accident. She might have given birth to me, but that’s where our relationship ended.”
I looked down, a little sad and a lot confused. “You still could have told me.”
“You’re right,” Mom admitted. “And I apologize for not doing so.”
“What happened? With Wilma Allen? Why did she give you up for adoption?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t want to talk about it. We can talk to someone about putting the building up for sale. We’ll compensate employees and this tattoo man and—”
“No,” I cut her off. Her assumption about what I wanted to do and the way she automatically took over told me I was making the right decision. I didn’t want to sell. I didn’t know what I would do with it, but I was pretty sure I wanted to try and figure it out on my own.
“You’re not going to Little Beach,” Mom said.
“I’m twenty-four years old. I’ll do what I want.” Wow. I was pretty sure I sounded more like a teenager right then than I ever had.