Tuckers have been in town forever,” I pointed out. “It isn’t like he’s a stranger. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”
“Still,” Paige said. “There’s one more thing to consider. Mom will hate this.”
I thought of Lottie, back in her little house, where my childhood bedroom was just waiting for me to return so it could stifle me with all the hopes and dreams I’d never fulfill under my mother’s painfully sympathetic gaze. I had to get out of there either way. “Yeah. You’re right,” I said. “But I think I’m going to do it anyway.”
Monday morning, I met Michael at the lawyer’s office again. Augustus had called to find out if we had questions and to tell us he had something else for us.
“What do you suppose this will be?” I asked Michael as we met on the sidewalk outside.
“Well, it’s unlikely to be as surprising as the first time we visited,” he said. Michael smiled at me, and in the sun shining over the square, his hair glowed golden red and his blue eyes sparkled. He might have been a Tucker, but on a purely aesthetic level, the man was hot.
I ignored his dazzling looks and my own unbidden reaction to them and cleared my throat. “Let’s go find out.”
We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door to the lawyer’s office, and Anders greeted us wearing the same strange round hat he’d had on the previous week.
“Hello, hello,” he said, waving us in.
When we were seated, he looked between us. “You’ve seen the house, yes?”
“Yes,” we agreed.
“Then I am bound by the terms of Mrs. Easter’s last wishes to give you this.” He slid an envelope across the desk to us.
The crisp white paper had our names written on it in a spindly hand, and for a moment we both stared at it.
“X-ray vision, is it?” Anders asked us, sounding a little impatient.
I glanced up at him. “What?”
“Most folks need to open an envelope to make out what’s inside. But maybe you’re honing your X-ray vision?”
Michael chuckled as his eyes met mine, and I ignored the warm rush of familiarity I felt as I looked at him smiling. “May I?” he asked, gesturing to the document.
I nodded and waited as he opened up what appeared to be a hand-written letter. Surely this would explain everything and give us a clear idea what we were supposed to do. Michael read out loud:
Dear Addison and Michael:
I’m sure you have convinced yourselves that I was a doddering old woman, losing my faculties. I am not, I assure you. I do feel, however, that I’m losing my grip on life and suspect you’ll be reading this sooner rather than later.
At this point, you have heard my final wishes and have visited the house at Maple Lane.
You should know that house holds many fond memories for me, and for my family—which perhaps you have gleaned by now is your family too. Both of you.
I left it to you for two reasons. Number one, that house is both the root and the end of the feud between the Tanners and the Tuckers—or that’s what I hope. I’ll leave that last part to you two. Number two, you are the only people I could think of who also have history there—albeit short-lived—since you both spent time there as children. I hope that maybe you can see past the overgrown gardens and dusty rooms to find and restore the true beauty of my childhood home.
Finally, I believe you will enjoy the experience. The house holds ghosts between its walls, history and heartache, joy and devastation. I hope you will find something for yourselves there—your pasts, and maybe, your futures too.
Sincerely,
Your Cousin, Filene Easter
“That’s it?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but the letter hadn’t exactly cleared everything up.
“That’s the whole letter.”
“So what have you decided to do?” Anders asked. “Will you take possession of the house?”
“What happens if we don’t take it?” Michael asked.
“If you don’t take the house, it’ll be donated to those causes Mrs. Easter designated. And as soon as it deteriorates to the point where it can be condemned, it will be demolished so the land can be sold for proceeds to divide between them.”
“That sounds kind of awful,” I said, imagining the grand old house being pushed over by bulldozers, the contents and history lost forever as it was turned into the soil of those lush gardens.
“Right,” Michael agreed. “But you and I just walk away. So