“Good day,” Maddie said, as if she, too, were from a proper, old Boston family like the Morgans. Wealthy New England aristocrats, which, come to think of it, Maddie also might now be considered. Minus the aristocrat part.
Turning the knob on the front door, her fingers fidgeting worse than before, she walked briskly onto the porch, down the steps, and out to her car. Then she flicked on the ignition, fastened her seat belt, revved the engine, and sped off the premises, leaving a cloud of dust and shards of clamshells in her wake.
Halfway back to the cottage, she realized she hadn’t asked if the medical examiner had determined Grandma Nancy’s official cause of death.
* * *
She forgot to get food.
After arriving at the cottage she supposed she now could call home, Maddie sat at the kitchen table, gnawing on another piece of Lisa’s bread that had a soothing, savory touch of rosemary. She hadn’t yet figured out if she should return to the food truck for a veggie wrap or go straight to the fish market for a lobster roll, which might be a more fitting way to celebrate. But celebrating felt wrong. It wasn’t as if Maddie had won the lottery or the Pulitzer Prize for teaching good journalism, not that there was a prize for that. Instead, her windfall had come from an unhappy event—her grandmother was dead. Which in itself felt like a dream.
She wondered again if her father knew that Nancy had been alive and presumably well, and on the island this whole time, that she’d been making baskets and embroidering tea towels and gifting them to neighbors on their birthdays. Then Maddie vaguely remembered that her grandmother had come to her mother’s funeral, and that she hadn’t been alone. She’d arrived with a few people in an old camping trailer that she wanted to park in the driveway. But Maddie’s what-will-the-neighbors-think? father had said no.
She hadn’t thought about that in years.
As she sipped water that tasted straight from a freshwater well, Maddie thought she recalled her father’s brusque “no” not because he’d raised his voice (he rarely did), but because he’d described the camper as a “house on wheels,” and told Maddie he could not allow it to be parked on college property without a permit, which he didn’t have. She wanted to ask if he could ask the college if Grandma could at least stay in the house. But the night before, Maddie had heard him crying in the bedroom that he’d shared with her mother, and she didn’t want him to cry anymore. So she said nothing.
Had the funeral really been the last time Maddie had seen her grandmother? And, if so, why? Maybe she’d find an answer in the voluminous boxes or stacks of papers in the cottage or tucked between the pages of tattered magazines—maybe a letter to Grandma Nancy from Stephen Clarke would appear, reading something like: “Don’t contact us again. Ever.”
Would her reserved, well-respected father have done that?
She had no idea.
Closing her eyes, she tried to grasp the full meaning of her inheritance. Millions of dollars’ worth of property. It seemed so bizarre that it had landed in the lap of an ordinary assistant journalism professor from an ordinary town, a woman who now knew so little about so much.
One thing she did know was that she needed to tell Rafe.
And that she had to stop trying to think straight on an empty stomach.
Though she might have preferred to sit there, brooding, Maddie opened her eyes and went into motion in order to jog down the hill to find some food. She collected some cash, her phone, and the key to the cottage (unlike Grandma Nancy, Maddie locked doors). Then she realized she needed to change into her Nikes if she was going to run. But as she slipped out of her sandals, a now familiar “Yoo-hoo!” rang through the screen door.
Chapter 4
“Yoo-hoo, yourself,” Maddie said as she set down her things and went to the door. “No work at the town hall today?”
Lisa shook her head. “I took the afternoon off. Charlie—that’s my son—had a dental appointment. It looks like he’s going to need braces pretty soon.” She sighed and adjusted her silver headband that looked nicer than the red bandanna had. “We’ll probably have to get a third mortgage to pay for that.”
Perhaps Lisa had come calling in search of a loan. As an islander, she no doubt was tuned in to the property values. Maddie folded her arms.
“I know the feeling. My son needed them, too. It wasn’t much fun on an adjunct teacher’s salary.” She didn’t want to add that Owen had covered the cost.
Looking off toward Vineyard Sound, Lisa sighed and said, “With any luck, Loren, my daughter, won’t need them. But she’s only four, so who knows. Anyway, I just stopped to see if you’re settling in okay.”
Settling in? Did Lisa think Maddie planned to live there? She leaned against the doorjamb.
“Thanks, I’m fine. Right now I’m digging through my grandmother’s paperwork—I have a lot to do.”
“Of course. I’ll let you get back to it.” Lisa half turned away and then pivoted back. “Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to warn you about CiCi.”
Maddie winced. “And CiCi is . . . ?”
“Her real name is Cleo. Cleo Cochran. But she goes by her initials. C.C. Get it?”
Yes, Maddie got it.
“Anyway, she came into the town hall today and asked if I know what your plans are. Like if you’re going to sell this place.”
“Why? Does she want to buy it?”
