Tessa forced a breath in and out, then lifted a bottle of moisturizer from the counter. This chore could all have been done in under a minute, but she dragged out every movement, needing to be alone with her personal misery.
She didn’t want to bring down the happy family given a second chance with Jo Ellen.
She flipped open the locker-like door to get her mother’s bird robe—Maggie had insisted on bringing it for her—when she knocked something to the ground that hit her toe hard.
She looked down at a hard-sided notebook with a pink leather cover open on the floor, a page sliding out from the back. Yikes, that looked like one of Vivien’s diaries that she might have just abused.
Bending over, she picked it up and tried to slide the paper back in, but…it wasn’t a page from the diary. Sticking out from the glued backing of the cover was a thick, expensive sheet of stationery folded neatly in half.
“Viv?” she called. “Can you come here for a sec?”
In no time at all, Vivien appeared in the doorway, a look of concern on her face. “You okay, Tess?” she asked. “I know you’re upset.”
“And you’re about to be.” She held out the notebook with the paper hanging from the back. “I dropped this and I might have permanently damaged this notebook. I don’t know what this is.” She fluttered the paper. “Or why you hid it in the back of your diary. Which is here…why?”
“Maggie wanted to read it to Jo Ellen when she was in the coma.” She took the notebook, ignoring the paper to look hard at Tessa. “You and Dusty will figure this out, honey. I know you will.”
Tessa knew no such thing and was a little tired of platitudes. “I’m sorry about…whatever that is.”
On a sigh, Vivien looked down and eased the paper out completely. “I have no idea,” she said, opening it. “But it looks official. Jeez…”
Tessa didn’t really care, so she turned back to the robe to start folding the fluffy material to get it in a bag.
“Tess.”
“It won’t fit,” she murmured. “She’ll just have to wear it out of here, and won’t that be a sight?”
“Tess.”
“I’m kidding, Viv, I won’t?—”
“Tessa Wylie, will you shut up and read this?”
She spun around at the tone in Vivien’s voice, reacting as she stuck the now open paper in front of her…with shaking hands.
“What is it?”
“Your life just changed.”
What? Tessa squinted, her hated readers somewhere in her bag. But she could see an official embossing at the top in black, with raised letters that said “Law Offices” big enough for her to read.
She glanced up at Viv, who’d gone pale. “Read it,” she ordered.
Codicil to the Last Will and Testament of Roger Thomas Lawson.
“What?” Tessa croaked.
“Keep going.”
Tessa sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. She squinted and cursed her dyslexia, but forced her brain to concentrate on the words in front of her.
The document was dated September 14, 1995. It was witnessed and notarized with a stamp that had faded but was still readable.
I, Roger Thomas Lawson, being of sound mind and body, do hereby make, publish, and declare this codicil to my Last Will and Testament.
I direct that the real property located at 199 Gulf Shore Drive, Destin, Florida, shall, from this day forward, be equally owned and never divided between me and my heirs and assigns, and Arthur J. Wylie and his heirs and assigns.
In the event of my death, the property shall transfer to Magnolia Fredricks Lawson, my children, Eli, Vivien, and Crista Lawson, and Arthur J. Wylie, Jo Ellen Wylie, and their children, Theresa and Katherine Wylie, all equally co-owned for their personal and private use.
