Secrets. I was so fucking ready for the secrets.
Only they weren’t fucking secrets. They were anything but fucking secrets.
A receipt from the framer, left inside the corner, with a wedge of notes they’d used, hand scrawled, to put this family tree together in the first place. An alternative spelling for my great, great uncle’s middle name.
My pulse was still racing as I slammed those notes on the windowsill and forced a ridiculous smile on my face. Because this was ridiculous. Everything about this fucking disaster was fucking ridiculous, especially the notion I’d find some dark family secrets condemning Henry Drake in the frame of some family fucking tree.
With the forced smile came a laugh. A bitter laugh at first. A self-destructive laugh second. And then just a laugh. A laugh at how my fucking sensibilities were on the riot and had been for days. A laugh at how I’d driven here as though I was going to find the answer to everything in some little hidden drawer somewhere.
As if I’d find anything in this ridiculous little secret stash that would save me from my disastrous fucking predicament.
I was still laughing when a cough sounded from my father’s bedroom doorway. My cheeks were burning from the strain as I turned to face the figure waiting there, and found it was kind old Frederick with a mug of tea in his hand. He looked concerned. Brows pitted.
Concerned about me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was laughing to myself. Nothing to worry about.”
He came closer and handed the mug over. I took a sip gladly to find it was exactly the childhood mix I’d come to know so well.
I watched him look at the frame on the floor and the notes on the sill and shook my head, playing it down.
“I was just looking for things I may have missed way back when,” I told him. “It was nothing. Just some old notes.”
His brows were still heavy as he looked up at me. “Things you may have missed way back when?” he prompted and I shrugged.
“I imagine there were plenty of things I may have missed way back when, Fred. It’s the thought that I could just waltz in and find them that I think I’m a little out with.”
“Maybe that’s the case, Mr Grant, sir,” he said. “But stepping back onto old territory certainly doesn’t do you any harm in the quest for them.”
He picked up the frame from the floor and hung it back up on the far wall, housekeeping skills coming right back into play oh so naturally. He was straightening it out nicely when I opted to ask him the obvious question. One I should have probably asked him way back when if I hadn’t been so bull-headed in my misery.
“Did you know Amelia George, Fred?”
His stance stiffened, his eyes still on the frame he was hanging. “Yes, sir. I knew Amelia.”
That wave of upset was in my gut. The sound of her name on someone else’s lips, even after all this time.
“You know what happened to her? With me, I mean? You know how things ended up for her?”
And that’s when he turned to me, with an expression on his face I’d never seen before, not even in all those years of growing up with him.
“Yes, sir, I know what happened to her,” his voice was low, even in the quiet. “The real question is, do you?”Chapter FifteenPaigeIt was a long day. One of those where the night turns to morning and you drift through the hours. This whole place was like that actually. Drifting, unsure.
Rebecca lay at my side and we talked and napped. She told me about her crappy love life before this sixty-day craziness and I told her bits of my past before Brandon Grant’s social media profile crashed into my life.
We both listened. We both learnt. About us. About our sisters. About each other.
I think that’s the thing when you are so out of your comfort zone in life, the weirdness creates some kind of transparency and honesty that your brain tumbles out with.
“It should be the older sister taking care of the younger sister,” Rebecca said. “At least, that’s how I’ve always seen it. That’s why I bought Carolyn a whole new wardrobe a few weeks back.”
Her laugh made me laugh too. “I’m sure she appreciated it.”
“Oh, she appreciated it,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate another shopping trip when my second grand pay day comes off. Maybe next time she’ll be wanting to check out the department stores in Paris rather than Paignton.”
“Maybe you’ll be wanting to check out Paris too, Paignton be damned.” I stared up at the ceiling with a smile on my face, picturing the beach I’d come to know so well. Then remembering why I’d followed my sister so far across country in the first place. I sighed at that. “I don’t know how things would have panned out in life if it was Phoebe taking care of me. She doesn’t know much past microwave meals.”