I’m not—while I might not have slept great, I don’t have regrets about our plan. A small amount of guilt that Lorelei will be disappointed when I don’t marry Amanda, yes. But any regrets about putting myself in a position to make my family choose between me and the feud?
Nope.
Especially sincesomeoneclearly knows something more about our family histories than we do, and decided it was time we were let in on some old, old secrets.
I pull myself off the couch, stretch, and head into the small kitchen with Amanda. Chili stays behind, moving only to yawn and put his head back down on his quilt bed.
Coffeepot’s making noises while she stares, again, at the letter that someone dropped off here sometime since she arrived. We left it on thescarred oak kitchen table when we went to bed last night after both of us read it a dozen or more times.
“Do you think it’s a warning?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what it is.”
Technically speaking, I knowwhatit is.
It’s a letter, written by my great-great-great-grandmother in the late 1800s to my great-great-great-great-aunt Lucy, who hadn’t yet come to America from Germany.
And it spells out very clearly that a man named George Anderson had left my great-great-grandmother Maud brokenhearted after leaving her days before their wedding to marry atrollop—my great-great-great-grandmother’s word—named Minnie.
There’s no question that Maud is my great-great-grandmother and that Lucy is my great-great-great-great-aunt.
Uncle Rob and Dad got Grandpa and Grandma a printed family tree going back ten generations for Christmas when I was in high school. I was fascinated with it. Used to go to their house to stare at it hanging over their mantel. Been a few years, but I know where I come from.
I know the names.
But I don’t know what it means that someone delivered a copy of this letter to the mailbox where Amanda’s staying. Beyond that I’m in this fake engagement until we get answers to this too.
“I tossed and turned all night wondering if this is why our families don’t get along,” Amanda says. “I don’t know all of my relatives back that far the way you do, but GeorgeAnderson? That can’t be a coincidence, can it? And then I started wondering why George and Maud broke up. Was Minnie pregnant with George’s baby? Was there some kind of arranged-marriage situation somewhere? Was Maud really brokenhearted? Or was that the family’s story, and Maud actually broke George’s heart? No, please, don’t get offended, this isn’t aboutyourfamily specifically. Or even mine. It’s just a thing I wonder after the numberof plays and musicals I’ve read and seen. I’d ask the same thing about any family letter like this.”
“There might be more.”
“Right? The number of possibilities of what actually happened could be endless.”
“More letters.”
She stares at me.
I tap the letter. It’s not original—it’s a photocopy. “We need to figure out where this came from.”
“Your family. Has to be. Mine doesn’t know where the feud started.”
I suck in a deep breath and pinch my eyes closed.
“I didn’t mean that in the offensive way,” she adds quickly. “I’m not implying your family does and they’re lying. I promise, I’m not.”
“I’m not offended.”
“You look offended.”
“I’d like a cup of coffee before I remind you that any of our relatives could be guilty. They could’ve started fighting for any reason from George and Maud to someone breaking someone else’s window a hundred years ago. Which isn’t about you or me.”
She stares at me again.
Clearly, we both need coffee.
Or possibly something stronger, considering that her eyes are getting shiny and her chin’s starting to wobble.
Fuck.
