Why? Kate wondered. Why did she need to be introduced to his ex-wife? Unless Melissa had insisted, unless this was some kind of reconnaissance mission.
After they left, Dani appeared at Kate's elbow. “She's pretty.”
“I didn't notice.”
“Liar. She's exactly the kind of pretty that makes the rest of us feel like we're wearing our brother's hand-me-downs.”
Kate looked down at herself. She was, in fact, wearing one of Tom's old flannel shirts over her T-shirt, the sleeves rolled up because they were too long. Her jeans had paint stains from touching up the dining room baseboards. Now that her hair was a little longer, she’d put it in her usual ponytail, functional but hardly flattering.
“It doesn't matter what she looks like,” Kate said.
“It does if she wants him back.”
“That's Ben's business.”
“Is it?” Dani studied her sister. “Because you've been in love with him for months and doing nothing about it, and now his ex-wife shows up looking like a Vineyard Vines catalog and you're going to pretend it doesn't matter?”
“I'm not in love with him.”
Dani's laugh was sharp. “Katie, you watch for his truck every morning. You know his coffee order, his favorite sandwich, the way he likes his eggs. You light up when he enters a room and deflate when he leaves. That's love, even if you're too scared to call it that.”
Before Kate could argue, Tom emerged from his office cave, looking grimmer than usual.
“Family meeting,” he announced. “Now.”
They gathered in the dining room, the four siblings around the table where three days ago their world had tilted off its axis. Tom had a legal pad covered in his precise handwriting, pages of notes that looked like evidence for a trial.
“I've been researching,” he began. “Looking into the timeline of Pop's business failure, Mom's illness, everything.”
“Why torture yourself?” James asked.
“Because I needed to understand the scope of what Lillian did.” Tom flipped through his notes. “Pop's business didn't just fail. It was systematically destroyed. I found records of the loans that were denied, the contracts that were mysteriously canceled. But here's what's interesting: Lillian didn't just make a few phone calls. She spent money, significant money, to make sure he couldn't recover.”
“What do you mean?” Kate asked.
“She paid off two of his competitors to undercut his bids. She hired someone to spread rumors about his reliability. She even bought one of the properties he was planning to develop, just to prevent him from getting it.”
The room was silent, absorbing this new level of cruelty.
“It would have cost her hundreds of thousands,” Tom continued. “Maybe more. She spent a fortune to destroy him.”
“Why?” Dani whispered. “Why go to those lengths?”
“Control,” Tom said simply. “She couldn't control Mom, so she tried to control the situation. Force her back through financial pressure.”
“But Mom didn't go back,” James said slowly. “Even when things got desperate, she stayed.”
“And it probably killed her,” Tom said bluntly. “The stress, the overwork, trying to keep the inn afloat while Pop's business failed. The cancer might have happened anyway, but the stress couldn't have helped.”
Kate thought about their mother, working eighteen-hour days, hiding bills from Pop, pretending everything was fine while their world crumbled. All because Lillian couldn't accept her daughter's choice.
“Wait!” Kate said, suddenly questioning Tom’s research. “How are you able to see all of this information?”
“Katie, you’d be surprised at what you can find online. Besides, there’s someone in town who seems to know everything that happened back then. Apparently, before Mom, Dad dated a women named Margaret Albertson. She lives in Falmouth, Maine. She seemed to know Lillian quite well, and although she wasn’t able to prove it, she told me she’d talked to a few people who were familiar with Lillian’s cruelty. I guess some had experienced Lillian Whitfield personally.”
Kate shook her head. “The whole thing is disgusting.”
Tom continued, “Some of it is ancient history that I’ve pieced together. As far as the rumors she helped spread, it explains why so many people in this town know what she did.”
