Harper touched my arm. “You don’t have to face anyone just yet. We can take the fire exit at the back.” She left me outside the room, to head down and help her staff.
Cosmo dozed on my bed, the scarf between his paws. His ears twitched as I crept nearer. Harper had sound-proofed her guest rooms well. Only the occasional thumping bass line made itself more felt than heard. I wondered if I should try to move the cat. A plush basket stood ready for him. Of course he’d ignored it so far.
A soft throaty purr stopped me. It would be nice to have that comforting sound nearby and it would also be mean to take his cushy spot away from him, when he already lost so much. The bed was big enough for both of us. Next to him, I sank into a deep sleep.
One of the good things about small towns, where most people stay settled for life, is that they rally around you. When I came down for breakfast, sunbeams shone through the windows and sparked dancing fingers of light on the honey-colored floorboards.
A couple of handwritten notes waited for me.
“How are you holding up?” Harper asked, as she poured me a cup of freshly ground coffee.
I added a generous dose of cream. “Okay, I think. It helped that I had a chance to see her. I only wish I remembered what we had to do when my mom died.”
Harper tapped a finger on the notes. “It’s all in hand. Your aunt’s lawyer has called me. Well, Louisa’s receptionist has. You have an appointment in an hour. The funeral home will receive you at your convenience, and the florists have promised to hold all her favorite flowers, no matter who calls at their store.”
“Then I’ll only have to get in touch with the cousins?” Brian and Brenda lived a couple of hours away, in different directions. They’d spent their summers in Willowmere when I was a kid, but the five- year age difference between us had meant we never got that close. They were as closely linked to my aunt on the family tree, but since I’d grown up with her, she was the closest person in the world I’d had, apart from my daughter.
“That’s all sorted. Louisa took care of the calls.”
A wave of gratefulness washed over me. “As efficient as always.” Louisa Connors had been the undisputed queen of the spreadsheet at high school. Anything that needed organizing, categorizing or cataloguing was dumped into her capable lap. She’d edited the yearbook, kept score of baseball matches, and she’d been nice too. No wonder Aunt Violet had entrusted her law firm with her legal affairs.
“One last thing,” Harper said as she cracked eggs into a skillet. She’d already fried four strips of bacon in their own fat. She tested the temperature of the pan before she continued.
I sipped my coffee and watched the fingers of light flit across the floor. She’d tell me soon enough.
The rich aroma of fried bacon reached my nostrils. She divided the food evenly onto two plates and took a seat opposite me. It tasted as good as it smelled.
I mopped up the last bit of bacon fat with a piece of toast when she said, “Louisa said to bring the cat.”
The toast fell out of my hand. “Cosmo? Why?”
“No idea. Maybe your aunt left everything to him? You’ll find out soon enough. He’s a good traveler, so he should be fine in the car.”
The law office of Connors and Sons (or in Louisa’s case, daughter, not that it was reflected in the name) was ten blocks away from theBlue Moon. On my own, it would have been an easy walking distance. With a cat in tow, the car sounded like a sensible option.
I checked on the different areas I’d laid out for Cosmo. Food and water stations had been used this morning, and so had the litter pan in the bathroom. Five minutes clean-up, and we’d be ready to go.
Harper had offered to come. I declined. She couldn’t put her complete schedule on hold for me. She had a business to run. If I needed her, she was only a phone call away.
The fall leaves sparkled in the sun as I drove towards Main Street. Most of the businesses were small artisanal shops, from bakeries with award winning gateaux and handmade bread to crystal shops, a tailor that also offered sewing courses, and a local brewery. The pharmacy and grocery stores offered home delivery. If you were so inclined, you could live out your days in Willowmere without ever having to leave the town boundaries.
Street parking offered enough space, sidewalks were wide, and a picnic table and a playground had recently been added to the small central park. The local K-12 school flanked it on the shortest side, and the vet and pet store sat opposite the new, fenced-in dog park. City planning had been taken seriously for generations, and that wasn’t going to change any day soon.
Cosmo allowed himself a quick glance towards a spaniel and a labrador mix who were chasing sticks behind their fence. He pressed his furry face against the plastic bubble as I rolled his carrier from the car to the law office. “Not much longer,” I promised him.
Inside, a Turkish rug covered the center of the hallway. The dark wood gleamed like satin. Paneling covered the walls up to hip height. Portraits of members of the firm hung above a group of accent chairs I’d found for Louisa when she left law school.
I rolled my shoulders to ease my tension. They creaked loud enough to cause the young receptionist to stare at me. I opened my mouth to apologize. No. Getting older was a fact of life, nothing I had to be ashamed off. If creaky joints, a bit of extra padding or a few wrinkles offended anyone’s sensibilities, too bad for them.
I sat down, gazing into Cosmo’s eyes. I opened the bubble and instead fastened a fine-meshed net across the opening. The receptionist’s mouth curled up at the corners. “He’s so cute.”
“He is.” Maybe I’d misinterpreted her earlier stare, and my noisy joints had taken her by surprise. I rolled my shoulders again. They definitely felt looser.
“We have an awesome reiki guy, two doors down,” she said. “My gramma swears by him. Your aunt told her to go and now she’s fit as a fiddle.”
I forced myself to nod, although the girl made me sound positively geriatric. Had I treated middle-aged women like that when I was her age, which I took to be barely legal to drink? I glanced at the sign on her desk. Deanna James, receptionist. I filed that name for future reference. To be on the safe side, I also texted it to myself. I’d been having trouble with my memory lately, not often enough to worry, but the last thing I intended was to give Deanna a chance to make another well-meant remark about my advanced years.
At least she’d distracted me. I hadn’t thought of why I was here for at least 90 seconds.
