Even though she could see Lilly from the corner of her eye, she hadn’t noticed the teenager shift her position and didn’t expect the warm hands that closed around hers, gently taking the packet from her. Pinching it tightly, Lilly expertly tore it in two and handed Sylvie a tissue.
“I’ve always loved coming to visit, too,” Lilly said, her voice trembling slightly. “I’m glad I got to sit and talk with her this week. It was really nice. Besides, I always enjoy seeing you, even though I hate the heat.”
The teenager laughed as Sylvie wiped her cheeks with the tissue. Taking a deep breath—deep enough that it almost hurt her lungs to expand that much—she tried to steady her heart rate. Lilly’s dismissal of societal expectations aside, she really should calm down and face the day downstairs.
“This isn’t hot,” she said. “Just wait and see what June feels like!”
As soon as she said it, she regretted it. Annette had made her daughter promise that no one would tell Lilly about the amended will until she said so. Despite being very clear with Sylvie about her uneasy feelings and what she believed they meant, Annette hadn’t given them the say-so. Sylvie thought hermom had started to believe she was really feeling better, so she had put it off.
She still hadn’t spoken to either Lilly or Fiona. They needed to plan the funeral, though she was surprised to learn her mom had already taken care of most of it. Rhonda and Dr. Tellis had arrived that afternoon, on the day her mom had died.
They seemed to know more about her mom’s life in the last few months than she did.
“Gross, this is already like the surface of the sun,” Lilly said, grinning. “Give me the snow and the mountains any day.”
It was nice to see Lilly smiling, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to smile back. She would have to tell her soon, before the lawyers did. Although she figured she should talk to Fiona first. After all, she would need to be a co-caretaker until Lilly turned eighteen.
Groaning out loud, Sylvie caught her niece looking at her expectantly.
“What? Realized that no matter how much you want your coffee, my mom is downstairs, and you’ll have to see her?”
“No!” she replied, frantically searching for an excuse. It wasn’t that she wanted to lie to Lilly, exactly, but it wasn’t good form for her to allow the girl to know how poorly she got on with her mother. “I’m just feeling guilty because I do, in fact, want a coffee.”
Not a lie.
“Why do you feel guilty about that?” Lilly asked, looking puzzled, then her eyes brightened as she remembered. “Oh, you were going caffeine-free this year, right? And how’s your one book a week working out for you?”
“How do you know about my New Year’s list?” Sylvie stood as they made their way out of the Family Wing and down the stairs. “Making me feel kind of stalked here!”
Lilly waved her off with a flick of her wrist. “I follow you on socials, obviously. And you post New Year’s lists, like, every year. I think you’re the only person I know who still does that.”
Great. Now she felt old and out of touchanda little stalked. A horrible thought occurred to her—what else had she posted without realizing Lilly might have seen it?
“It can’t be that bad,” Lilly said. “You should be at, what…six books by now?”
She sighed. “Yes. But I’m at two…and a half.”
Lilly laughed. “You should follow me on Story-Life. You’d get some good recs!”
“Story-what?” she asked, pausing at the bottom of the staircase.
Her niece eyed her as if she were crazy. “Story-Life? It’s like the best reading tracker app ever. I post about what I’m reading and review new books. I’ve got a couple of thousand followers. It’s really cool!”
Turning on her heel, the teenager crossed the lobby and entered the kitchen, where Sylvie could hear her saying good morning to Fiona.
Apparently, she was so out of touch that she hadn’t noticed reading and books had become popular. When did that happen? And couldn’t it have happened back when she was in high school?
“Coffee’s up!” Lilly called from the kitchen, snapping Sylvie out of her thoughts.
She groaned inwardly, knowing she’d have to head in and face Hurricane Fiona. At least there was coffee in there.
Chapter 5
Sylvia had called Dr. Tellis and Rhonda the day her mom died, as had been requested. They arrived that afternoon, both carrying large manila envelopes filled with documents and letters her mom had asked them to deliver after her death.
Now, the open letters from Rhonda and Dr. Tellis sat on Sylvie’s desk, crumpled from the countless times she had read them in the last three days. She yawned as she read through the letter from Rhonda again, for what felt like the hundredth time. She had almost memorized it by now. Rhonda was a good therapist and didn’t reveal anything she didn’t have express permission to say. In fact, the top of the letter had a handwritten and signed disclaimer from her mom, stating that she was giving Rhonda permission to disclose information as she saw fit.
Nevertheless, the words were beginning to imprint themselves on the back of her eyelids. She realized that she still didn’t understand her mom’s decisions any more than she had when she was first told.
