Chapter 4 - The Christmas Guest List)
Tiffany’s parents arrived three days early.
Donna Pierce entered the house in a white fur-trimmed coat and kissed the air beside Margaret’s cheek. She carried no suitcase because her husband, Frank, followed with four. Their son Shane came behind them with his wife Brooke, their twelve-year-old daughter Lucy, their eight-year-old son Matthew, and enough luggage for an ocean crossing.
“The roads might close,” Tiffany explained while directing everyone upstairs. “It made sense to come now.”
Margaret stood in the front hall surrounded by melting snow and expensive perfume. Kevin avoided her eyes.
“Which room is ours?” Donna asked.
“The Lakeside Inn has several,” Margaret said.
Donna laughed as if Margaret had made a charming joke. “Still sharp. That is good.”
The word still bothered Margaret more than it should have.
Tiffany placed Donna and Frank in the guest room, Shane and Brooke in Kevin’s old room, and the children in the den. She had already moved Margaret’s sewing baskets into the basement. Nobody had asked permission.
By noon, Donna was measuring the dining room wall with a retractable tape.
“What are you doing?” Margaret asked.
“Imagining possibilities. Once this opens into the kitchen, the house will feel thirty years younger.” Donna snapped the tape closed. “Tiffany has wonderful instincts.”
“The wall is load-bearing.”
“Shane knows construction.”
Across the room, Shane tapped the plaster with his knuckles. He was broad-shouldered, cheerful when he wanted something, and employed by a company that remodeled foreclosed homes. “Anything can come down if you support what is above it.”
Margaret looked at Kevin. “That applies to families too.”
He walked into the kitchen.
Lucy remained near the Christmas tree, watching the adults. She was a serious girl with dark braids and a habit of collecting overheard sentences. When Margaret carried empty glasses toward the kitchen, Lucy followed.
“Grandma Donna says this room will be an office,” the girl said.
“Grandma Donna says many things.”
“She says Aunt Tiffany will let me paint it blue after New Year’s.”
Margaret set down the glasses. “Did she?”
Lucy nodded. “But Dad said they should wait until the papers are finished.”
“What papers?”
The girl’s eyes widened. She understood from Margaret’s tone that she had stepped somewhere dangerous.
“I do not know.”
Donna called from the dining room, and Lucy hurried away.
Margaret went upstairs to check the linen cupboard. The blue folder remained hidden. She removed it, wrapped it inside an old pillowcase, and placed it at the bottom of a laundry basket. She carried the basket to her car as though taking clothes to the cleaner.
At Evelyn’s office, she left the folder, the original deed, Thomas’s will, and the counterfeit license in a locked evidence cabinet. She also signed a new durable financial power of attorney naming Evelyn temporarily, with Margaret’s longtime friend Ruth as successor. Any earlier power of attorney was expressly revoked.
“Did I have an earlier one?” Margaret asked.
“Not one that I prepared,” Evelyn said. “But after what we have seen, I prefer not to assume.”
They prepared a written notice stating that Margaret was competent, represented by counsel, and did not authorize any sale, mortgage, transfer, guardianship petition, or change in residence. Copies went to the county recorder, her banks, her doctor, and the three major credit bureaus.
“This feels dramatic,” Margaret said as she signed the last page.
“Good locks feel dramatic only to people trying the doors.”
Evelyn then handed her a small flash drive. “Everything is copied here. Keep it somewhere unexpected.”
Margaret thought of Thomas hiding peppermints in his desk. “I know the place.”
Back home, she slipped the drive into the hollow base of a wooden Santa ornament Thomas had carved. She returned it to the middle of the mantel among twelve other Santas.
The house grew louder by the hour. Children ran along the upstairs hall. Frank took control of the television. Donna rearranged the ornaments on the tree. Shane inspected the basement fuse box without being asked.
At four, Tiffany appeared with a clipboard.
“We need to discuss meals.”
“We discussed them Monday. You are cooking and cleaning.”
“I assumed you were being sarcastic.”
“I was being hopeful.”
Tiffany lowered the clipboard. “My mother thinks you are overwhelmed.”
“Your mother thinks my dining room belongs to a measuring tape.”
“You have been secretive and hostile since we moved in.”
“You opened my mail.”
“It came that way.”
“You kept a message from my attorney.”
Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “Kevin told you?”
“You just did.”
For a second, neither woman moved. Then Tiffany stepped closer.
“What are you doing with Evelyn Cho?”
“Planning my future.”
“Kevin is your future.”
“Kevin is my son. He is not my owner.”
Tiffany’s face reddened. “Everything we have done has been for this family.”
Margaret heard the curious wording. Not everything we plan to do. Everything we have done.
“What exactly have you done?” she asked.
Kevin appeared behind Tiffany. “Enough.”
He took his wife gently by the elbow. Tiffany pulled away, but the interruption had restored her caution.
“Your mother needs rest,” she said.
Again, that strange suggestion that Margaret was failing.
Tiffany walked toward the dining room. Kevin stayed.
“Tell me where the money went,” Margaret said quietly.
His face emptied.
She knew then. Whatever portion he understood, he knew enough to be afraid.
“Not here,” he whispered.
“This is the only place where you should have told me.”
Before he could answer, Lucy entered the kitchen carrying an empty cocoa mug. She stopped between them.
“Sorry,” the girl said.
Kevin forced a smile. “It is okay.”
Lucy placed the mug in the sink and moved close to Margaret. As she passed, she pressed a folded scrap of paper into Margaret’s apron pocket.
Margaret waited until the girl left before opening it.
The message was written in purple marker.
GRANDMA DONNA SAID AFTER NEW YEAR’S YOU WILL LIVE AT LAKESIDE.
May you like
Lakeside was not an inn.
It was an assisted-living facility on the other side of town.
