“Oh my God, she actually used it?” Lennox asked, chuckling.
“You?”
“Like three years ago,” he said, still chuckling. “I gotta see this next time we come home. Pay her a visit.”
“I wish she had met Stephanie,” Will said. He was the epitome of being in love. Everything revolved around it. I could relate.
They were back in their dorms after spending the same amount of time with Stephanie’s parents as they had with me. They had sent a few pictures and updated that Will hadn’t proposed yet. “I have a whole plan,” he had said when I’d asked.
When I arrived at Sandy Hills, we held a little ceremony. Jim drilled the plaque into its place on the wooden bench under the tree. Sue, Sylvie, Charlie, Amarilys, and even Karla from reception were all present.
I later asked Sylvie to use her office to call the relative Vi had asked me to contact. Whenever I had offered she’d contact her family, Vi had said she had none left that was worth having. So, I was wondering who the mystery man was. Was it her ‘Oliver’?
“Clampit, Nash, Conner, and Daniels. How may I help you?” a woman answered my call.
I removed the phone from my ear and looked at it to make sure I had dialed right.
“Hello?” I heard the woman on the other end of the line repeat.
“Um, hi. I’m looking for a relative of Violet Jackson, or Vi. She gave me this number for him. Or her.”
“One moment please.”
“Dax Clampit. Good afternoon,” a male voice answered a moment later.
“Hi, I’m calling for a relative of Violet Jackson.” It sounded more like a question.
“Miss Raine? January Raine?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no relative. I’m Miss Jackson’s lawyer. Let me be quick and clear, as my instructions indicate. Violet Jackson bequeathed everything that was left of her funds to you. It’s not a lot, but it was supposed to cover a few more years at Sandy Hills, so it’s nothing to sneeze about either.”
I forgot how to speak for a moment.
“Miss Raine?”
“Aren’t you supposed to call me to your office and do this formally, like they do in the movies?” I had no idea why this was what came out of my mouth.
The man chuckled. “When you’re in a movie, let me know. I’ll send you everything with a courier. You’ll have to sign and return it, and the funds will be transferred to your account. Oh, and I was asked to read this: ‘I hate it when people make a long-ass deal out of death, so I asked Dax Clampit here—what a silly name, right?—to do it simple and easy. I love you, January.’”
I would have laughed less if Dax Clampit hadn’t read it in the monotonous tone as he had. I laughed hard, instead of crying. June would have rolled her eyes if she heard me.
The pace of my life was still crazy, but I had finally gained more than I had lost. And I didn’t mean my bank balance, which would probably improve once I could cover at least part of my debts. Stephanie, June, Oliver. I had gained them. I was a boy mom and soon I would have a daughter-in-law.
And June, these last few weeks had me rediscover my sister. Sometimes, a good crisis was all you needed to discover those who fought next to you. I had a feeling that there was a lot more in June the Prune than she let on. In a way, June was a lot like Oliver—she held everything so tightly and intensely inside as if she could control life that way.
And Oliver, I still had to wrap my mind around it. Body and heart, I was all his, but my mind was still playing catch up with the fact that he was mine. Like aurora borealis—even seeing it, you still can’t fully fathom it.
Chapter 32
Oliver
The London drizzle raced down the double-glazed windows of the silent apartment on Whitcomb Street, the sound completely muffled. You could hear a pin drop.
I lifted my eyes from my laptop and looked at it. Then, shifting my gaze to the brass compass that sat on the desk by my laptop, I got up and opened the window to let the sound, the drops, the air in. The smell of rain.
January Raine.
