Page 15 of Unpacking Secrets
“Why did my mother leave Spruce Hill? She told me my grandmother died before I was born. I don’t understand why she lied. The note she left me was . . . cryptic, to say the least.”
The lawyer shook his head. “That I don’t know, I’m afraid. I moved to the area long after your mother left and didn’t get to know Nan until several years later. Nan never went into detail, but I got the impression she didn’t know exactly why Melissa went away, only that she’d been acting strangely in the weeks before her departure, shortly after Nan found out Melissa was pregnant.”
I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t be leaving town anytime soon, Henry Walker be damned. The truth might take a lifetime to unravel, but I owed it to myself—and to my mother and Nan—to find it.
“If she gave up on finding my mother,” I said slowly, “then why did she leave the inn to me?”
“You can thank social media for that, actually.”
“Nan found me through social media?”
At my incredulity, his lips twitched. “Three months ago, you won an award for your artwork.”
“Yeah, it was just a little community art show, but my friend Sarah convinced me to enter, since she knew I was struggling after my mom died. Sarah is one of my biggest fans,” I said with a smile, despite the brief twinge of homesickness. “She announced it far and wide after I won.”
Mr. Escobar smiled back. “Well, Nan happened to scroll past a photo of you with your painting. According to Mrs. Gregson, Nan said, and I quote, ‘There is no chance in hell that is not my granddaughter.’ The resemblance is really quite startling.”
“But she didn’t contact me then,” I said slowly.
It would still have been too late for Nan to reconnect with her only child, but I could've been there for her in the end. A look of pain crossed the lawyer’s face, mirroring my own.
“She’d been ill for quite some time, Juliet. As delighted as she was to have found you, that was also when she learned of your mother’s death. Nan took a turn for the worse soon afterward.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I wish she’d contacted me right away. I would rather have had that time than any inheritance.”
“Her condition deteriorated too rapidly for her to reach out, I’m afraid. I didn’t even know she’d located you until after she passed, when the staff at the inn informed me. Nan never gave up hope, Juliet. Her will was written in such a way that the inn was to go to her direct family members, with a specific account designated to pay for further investigations if necessary.”
My heart clenched painfully when I thought about how close Nan had come to finding me, only to have her body betray her at the very end.
“After Mrs. Gregson mentioned the photo to me, I tried to track you down. We spent weeks scouring social media, trying to locate the picture. Henry managed to get into Nan’s phone and personal laptop, but there was no sign of it. All the staff remembered was your first name, which was mentioned in the post, and Nan’s excitement. We had no leads until you called the inn.”
“And I missed the funeral,” I said quietly. Another blow. I rubbed at my sternum.
Mr. Escobar smiled gently. “Knowing you were out there, the staff made some arrangements in the hopes that you’d be found. At the end of the summer, there will be a memorial celebration held in Nan’s honor at the gardens of the inn. They wanted you to get to know her by going through what she left behind, then to have a chance to say hello and goodbye in your own time.”
All of my questions about getting out of this surprise obligation evaporated into the realm of unimportance as more pressing concerns floated in to take their place.
“What about my grandfather? I saw pictures at the cottage from a wedding, some when my mom was a baby, but then he was gone. Is he still alive?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Mr. Escobar replied, looking for all the world as though this were a completely normal conversation. “Nan married her high school sweetheart not long after graduation. His name was Philip Montgomery, a banker from a very prominent family nearby. He died only a few years after your mother was born. I believe it was a boating accident out on the lake.”
Mr. Escobar ran through each condition of the will with me, answering every one of my questions before they were even asked.
The cottage belonged to me, free of stipulations. I could live in it, rent it out, or sell it at any time. As long as I maintained residency in Spruce Hill for twelve months, I could then choose to sell the inn and walk away with enough money to support me for years to come based on the estimated value of the property. During that time, I could learn the ropes at the inn if I wanted to, but there was no requirement that I take over Nan’s job.
The business was successful and despite my breakfast blowup with Henry, I had no interest in making any changes to what appeared to be a cornerstone of the community, so that was fine with me.
Basically, in exchange for a single year of my life spent in the town where my mother had grown up, I could move on to whatever I wanted with a level of financial security I’d never dreamed of before.
It didn’t make up for losing Nan before I even got the chance to meet her, didn’t make up for knowing my mother had lied for all those years, but it was quite a consolation prize.
The decision was made. Even without the inn and the money, the mystery surrounding my mother’s departure from Spruce Hill probably would've been enough to convince me to stay for a year. Everything else was icing on the cake.
After what seemed like another hour spent signing paperwork, I shook hands with Mr. Escobar and walked out into brilliant afternoon sunshine. Somehow, this meeting had forged a link to Nan in a way even taking up residence in her home had not been able to do.
Thiswaswhere I belonged.
Nan wanted to find me, right up to the very end. All of my earlier anxiety flew right out the window. I was—relieved? Free?
